up and put on a pair of dry shoes and then come down and sing to me."

And once again she found herself meekly obeying him.

By the time she had returned to the drawing-room, Pobs and Errington were
choosing the songs they wanted her to sing, while Joan was laughingly
protesting that they had selected all those with the most difficult
accompaniments.

"However, I'll do my best, Di," she added, as she seated herself at the
piano.

Joan's "best" as a pianist did not amount to very much at any time, and
she altogether lacked that intuitive understanding and sympathy which is
the _sine qua non_ of a good accompanist. Diana, accustomed to the
trained perfection of Olga Lermontof, found herself considerably
handicapped, and her rendering of the song in question, Saint-Saens'
_Amour, viens aider_, left a good deal to be desired in consequence--a
fact of which no one was more conscious than she herself.

But the voice! As the full rich notes hung on the air, vibrant with that
indescribably thrilling quality which seems the prerogative of the
contralto, Errington recognised at once that here was a singer destined
to make her mark. The slight surprise which he had evinced on first
learning that she was a pupil of the great Baroni vanished instantly. No
master could be better fitted to have the handling of such a voice--and
certainly, he added mentally, Joan Stair was a ludicrously inadequate
accompanist, only to be excused by her frank acknowledgment of the fact.

"I'm dreadfully sorry, Di," she said at the conclusion of the song. "But