"A thousand times yes, with gladness," answered Antonio. "Ah! I should like to tell you, at once, the troubles connected with my love-affair, but somehow it seems to me that I do not dare, to-day, just when our hearts have opened to one another in art; but some day I shall probably ask you to advise and help me in that direction too." "Both my advice and my help shall be at your service wherever and whenever they may be necessary," Salvator answered. As he was leaving he turned round and said with a smile: "Antonio, when you told me you were a painter, I was sorry I had mentioned your likeness to the Sanzio. I thought you might be silly enough, as many of our young fellows are, if they chance to have a passing likeness in the face to this or that great master, they take to wearing their hair and beard as he does, and find it necessary to imitate his style in art as well, though it may be quite contrary to their character. We have neither of us named the name of Raphael; but, believe me, in your pictures I find distinct traces of the extent to which the whole heaven of godlike ideas in the works of the greatest master of our time has been revealed to you. You understand Raphael. You will not reply to me as did Velasquez, whom I asked, the other day, what he thought of the Sanzio. He said Titian was the greater master; Raphael knew nothing about flesh colour. In that Spaniard is the Flesh, not the Word; yet they laud him to the skies in San Luca, because he once painted cherries which the birds came and tried to peck." A few days after the above conversation, it happened that the Academists of San Luca assembled in their church to judge the pictures of the painters who had applied for admission to the Academy. Salvator had sent Scacciati's beautiful Magdalene picture. The painters were amazed by the charm and the power of the work, and the most unstinted praise resounded from every lip when Salvator explained that he had brought the picture with him from Naples--the work of a young painter, prematurely snatched away by death.