years. It is this: I met
Guy Wilton the other day; you don't know him, but he is a most
charming and cultivated man, an engineer. I lunched with him at the
Pyramid--that bully old club into which nothing on earth can take a
man who has not distinguished himself in his profession. It is
composed of professional and business men, the law, the army, navy,
diplomatic and consular, the arts and sciences, and usually the
chief executive of the nation.

"During luncheon Wilton said: 'You ought to be in here. You are the
proper timber.'

"I was astounded and told him so.

"He said: 'By the way, the president of the Academy of Design is
very much impressed with some work of yours he has seen. I've heard
him, and other artists, also, discussing some pictures of yours
which were exhibited in a Fifth Avenue gallery.'

"Well, you know, Geraldine, the breath was getting scarcer in my
lungs every minute and I hadn't a word to say. And do you know what
that trump of a mining engineer did? He took me about after luncheon
and I met a lot of very corking old ducks and some very eminent and
delightful younger ducks, and everybody was terribly nice, and the
president of the Academy, who is startlingly young and amiable, said
that Guy Wilton had spoken about me, and that it was customary that
when anybody was proposed for membership, a man of his own
profession should do it.

"And I looked over the club list and saw Billy Van Siclen's name,
and now what do you think! Billy has proposed me, Austin, the marine
painter, has seconded me, and no end of men have written in my
behalf--professors, army men, navy men, business friends of
father's, architects, writers--and I'm terribly excited over it,
although my excitement has plenty of time to cool because it's a
fearfully conservative club and a man has to wait years, anyway.

"This is the very great honour, dear, for it is one even to be
proposed for the Pyramid. I know you will be happy over it.

"D."

The weather became hotter toward the beginning of September; his studio
was almost unendurable, nor was the house very much better.

To eat was an effort; to sleep a martyrdom. Night after night he rose
from his hot pillows to stand and listen outside his father's door; but
the old endure heat bette