“Precisely--they don’t dust it. Since we have lived in Siena we have not once seen the cobwebs removed from the battlements of the Mangia. Can you conceive of such housekeeping? My wife has never yet dared to write it home to her aunts at Bonchurch.” Mrs. Lombard accepted in silence this remarkable statement of her views, and her husband, with a malicious smile at Wyant’s embarrassment, planted himself suddenly before the young man. “And now,” said he, “do you want to see my Leonardo?” “DO I?” cried Wyant, on his feet in a flash. The doctor chuckled. “Ah,” he said, with a kind of crooning deliberation, “that’s the way they all behave--that’s what they all come for.” He turned to his daughter with another variation of mockery in his smile. “Don’t fancy it’s for your BEAUX YEUX, my dear; or for the mature charms of Mrs. Lombard,” he added, glaring suddenly at his wife, who had taken up her knitting and was softly murmuring over the number of her stitches. Neither lady appeared to notice his pleasantries, and he continued, addressing himself to Wyant: “They all come--they all come; but many are called and few are chosen.” His voice sank to solemnity. “While I live,” he said, “no unworthy eye shall desecrate that picture. But I will not do my friend Clyde the injustice to suppose that he would send an unworthy representative. He tells me he wishes a description of the picture for his book; and you shall describe it to him--if you can.” Wyant hesitated, not knowing whether it was a propitious moment to put in his appeal for a photograph. “Well, sir,” he said, “you know Clyde wants me to take away all I can of it.” Doctor Lombard eyed him sardonically. “You’re welcome to take away all you can carry,” he replied; adding, as he turned to his daughter: “That is, if he has your permission, Sybilla.” The girl rose without a word, and laying aside her work, took a key from a secret drawer in one of the cabinets, while the doctor continued in the same note of grim jocularity: “For you must know that the picture is not mine--it is my daughter’s.” He followed with evident amusement the surprised glance which Wyant turned on the young girl’s impassive figure. “Sybilla,” he pursued, “is a votary of the arts; she has inherited her fond father’s passion for the unattainable. Luckily, however, she also recently inherited a tidy legacy from her grandmother; and having seen the Leonardo, on which its discoverer had placed a price far beyond my reach, she took a step which deserves to go down to history: she invested her whole inheritance in the purchase of the picture, thus enabling me to spend my closing years in communion with one of the world’s masterpieces. My dear sir, could Antigone do more?” The object of this strange eulogy had meanwhile drawn aside one of the tapestry hangings, and fitted her key into a concealed door. “Come,” said Doctor Lombard, “let us go before the light fails us.”