Yet his next impression was one of sharp disappointment, for all he saw was a mediocre landscape of muddy and mediocre colors. It struck him as a climax of disillusionment, and his heart went down like a lift. And like a lift, having reached bottom, it began to ascend again, for he could see the stooping girl oddly intent on turning the metal latches on the back of the heavy frame. When the inclosed canvas was released she let it fall back a little from its confining ledges, and then drew it sidewise out of the frame. The movement reminded him of a photographer withdrawing the slide from a plate holder. But he had no chance to let his mind dwell on that movement, for a moment later his eyes were startled by a sudden impression of gold and ivory merging into a flow of soft and melting line and re-emerging into vivid and gracious contours which brought a catch in his throat. He stood staring at this second canvas which had been hidden under the first, stood staring at it with that faint tingling of the nerve ends with which the astonished senses sometimes dizzily capitulate to sheer bewilderment. “Great God!” he gasped. And there was reverence in that ejaculation, for all its sharpness. “What is it?” whispered the girl, catching an echo of his amazement. “Great God!” he repeated in his own whisper of awe. “It’s a Titian!” He saw before him the figure of a woman holding an apple. The apple was golden, but not more golden than the soft ivory glow of the woman’s body, bathed in its wash of purifying color. That body made Conkling’s mind flash back to the Borghese with its _Sacred and Profane Love_ and a moment later revert to the _Magdalen_ in the Pitti. There was the same divine fullness of throat and breast, the same wealth of red-gold hair, the unmistakable mellowness of color and melting loveliness of line. There was a largeness and power in the conception of the figure, a stubborn yet exalted animality, which convinced Conkling the canvas before him belonged to Titian’s later days. Yet as he studied it he objected to the word “animality.” He preferred to substitute the phrase “spiritualized paganism” as he deciphered subtler effects which made him think of the National Gallery _Magdalen_ and remember the abundant glow of bosom in the _Flora_ of the Uffizi, the machinery of human life made adorable to human eyes. “It’s a Titian!” he repeated in a shocked and half incredulous whisper as he stepped still closer to the canvas.