"They weel not want to hear me--after you, Mees Quentin," she said laughingly. But the British public is always very faithful to its favourites, and the audience, realising at last that the new singer was not going to bestow an encore, promptly exerted itself to welcome the French pianist in a befitting manner. When Diana reappeared for her second group of song's the excitement was intense. Whilst she was singing a pin could have been heard to fall; it almost seemed as though the huge concourse of people held its breath so that not a single note of the wonderful voice should be missed, and when she ceased there fell a silence--that brief silence, like a sigh of ecstasy, which, is the greatest tribute that any artiste can receive. Then, with a crash like thunder, the applause broke out once more, and presently, reappearing with the sheaf of roses in her hand, Diana sang "The Haven of Memory" as an encore. Let me remember, When I am very lonely, How once your love But crowned and blessed roe only, Long and long ago. The plaintive rhythm died away and the clapping which succeeded it was quieter, less boisterous, than hitherto. Some people were crying openly, and many surreptitiously wiped away a tear or so in the intervals of applauding. The audience was shaken by the tender, sorrowful emotion of the song, its big, sentimental British heart throbbing to the haunting quality of the most beautiful voice in Europe. Diana herself had tears in her eyes. She was experiencing for the first time the passionate exultation born of the knowledge that she could sway the hearts of a multitude by the sheer beauty of her singing--an abiding recompense bestowed for all the sacrifices which art demands from those who learn her secrets. Her fingers, gripping with unconscious intensity the flowers she held, detached a white rose from the sheaf, and it had barely time to reach the floor before a young man from the audience, eager-eyed, his face pale with excitement, sprang forward and snatched it up from beneath her feet. In an instant there was an uproar. Men and women lost their heads and clambered up on to the platform, pressing round the singer, besieging her for a spray of leaves or a flower from the sheaf she carried. Some even tried to secure a bit of the gold embroidery from off her gown by way of memento. "Oh, please . . . please . . ." A crowd that is overwrought, either by anger or enthusiasm, is a difficult thing to handle, and Diana retreated desperately, frightened by the storm she had evoked. One man was kneeling beside her, rapturously kissing the hem of her gown, and the eager, excited faces, the outstretched hands, the vision of the surging throng below, and the tumult and clamour that filled the concert-hall terrified her.