"No, you mightn't," she said firmly. "Put on your coat and that nice squashy hat of yours, and trot back to your hotel like a good Pobs." Stair laughed, looking down at her with kind eyes. "Very well, little autocrat." He put his hand under her chin and tilted her face up. "I've not congratulated you yet, my dear. It's a big thing you've done--captured London in a day. But it's a bigger thing you'll have to do." "You mean Paris--Vienna?" He shook his head, still with the kind smile in his eyes. "No. I mean, keep me the little Diana I love--don't let me lose her in the public singer." "Oh, Pobs!"--reproachfully. "As though I should ever change!" "Not deliberately--not willingly, I'm sure. But--success is a difficult sea to swim." He sighed, kissed her upturned face, and then, with twist of his shoulders, pulled on his overcoat and prepared to depart. Success is exhilarating. It goes to the head like wine, and yet, as Diana lay in bed that night, staring with wide eyes into the darkness, the memory that stood out in vivid relief from amongst the crowded events of the day was not the triumph of the afternoon, nor the merry evening which succeeded it, when "the coming _prima donna_" had been toasted amid a fusillade of brilliant little speeches and light-hearted laughter, but the remembrance of a pair of passionate, demanding blue eyes and of a low, tense voice saying:-- "I swear I won't fail you. Let me 'stand by.'" CHAPTER XIV THE FLAME OF LOVE Diana's gaze wandered idly over the blue stretch of water, as it lay beneath the blazing August sun, while the sea-gulls, like streaks of white light, wheeled through the shimmering haze of the atmosphere. Her hands were loosely clasped around her knees, and a little evanescent smile played about her lips. Behind her, the great red cliffs of Culver Point reared up against the sapphire of the sky, and she was thinking dreamily of that day, nearly eighteen months ago, when she had been sitting in the self-same place, leaning against the self-same rock, whilst a grey waste of water crept hungrily up to her very feet, threatening to claim her as its prey. And then Errington had come, and straightway all the danger was passed. Looking back, it seemed as though that had always been the way of things. Some menace had arisen, either by land or sea--or even, as at her recital, out of the very intensity of feeling which her singing had inspired--and immediately Max had intervened and the danger had been averted.