“Really, the insolence of these fellows in the press!  I shall let the Academy know what I think of it.  Not a rag of mine shall they ever see here again.  Ears and little fingers, indeed!  Idiots and owls!”

Julie smiled.  But it had to be explained to the Duchess that a wise man, half Italian, half German, had lately arisen who proposed to judge the authenticity of a picture by its ears, assisted by any peculiarities of treatment in the little fingers.

“What nonsense!” said the Duchess, with a yawn.  “If I were an artist, I should always draw them different ways.”

“Well, not exactly,” said Lord Lackington, who, as an artist himself, was unfortunately debarred from statements of this simplicity.  “But the ludicrous way in which these fools overdo their little discoveries!”

And he walked on, fuming, till the open and unmeasured admiration of the two ladies for his great Rembrandt, the gem of his collection, now occupying the place of honor in the large room of the Academy, restored him to himself.

“Ah, even the biggest ass among them holds his tongue about that!” he said, exultantly.  “But, hallo!  What does that call itself?” He looked at a picture in front of him, then at the catalogue, then at the Duchess.

“That picture is ours,” said the Duchess.  “Isn’t it a dear?  It’s a Leonardo da Vinci.”

“Leonardo fiddlesticks!” cried Lord Lackington.  “Leonardo, indeed!  What absurdity!  Really, Duchess, you should tell Crowborough to be more careful about his things.  We mustn’t give handles to these fellows.”

“What do you mean?” said the Duchess, offended.  “If it isn’t a Leonardo, pray what is it?”

“Why, a bad school copy, of course!” said Lord Lackington, hotly.  “Look at the eyes”—­he took out a pencil and pointed—­“look at the neck, look at the fingers!”

The Duchess pouted.

“Oh!” she said.  “Then there is something in fingers!”

Lord Lackington’s face suddenly relaxed.  He broke into a shout of laughter, bon enfant that he was; and the Duchess laughed, too; but under cover of their merriment she, mindful of quite other things, drew him a little farther away from Julie.

“I thought you had asked her to Nonpareil for Easter?” she said, in his ear, with a motion of her pretty head towards Julie in the distance.

“Yes, but, my dear lady, Blanche won’t come home!  She and Aileen put it off, and put it off.  Now she says they mean to spend May in Switzerland—­may perhaps be away the whole summer!  I had counted on them for Easter.  I am dependent on Blanche for hostess.  It is really too bad of her.  Everything has broken down, and William and I (he named his youngest son) are going to the Uredales’ for a fortnight.”

Lord Uredale, his eldest son, a sportsman and farmer, troubled by none of his father’s originalities, reigned over the second family “place,” in Herefordshire, beside the Wye.