Having deposited Dick in New York, and having had a second inoculation
for typhoid (preparatory for Mexico) and feeling quite ill, I returned
to Philadelphia on Tuesday. The place is becoming almost familiar to
me. It is not unlike an English old-world town, there are parts of it
that recall Winchester, or even remote bits of London. I have come to
work. When I was here last someone commissioned me to do her husband.
“If you can get him to sit for you,” she said. I have got him. It is
true he made every effort to evade me, to escape me, to postpone me.
But I was determined not to be beat, and I gave him no loophole. Dr.
Tait McKenzie has lent me his studio, and my victim comes there every
morning from 11 to 1. He says he hates it, and he arrives protesting
and resentful. But I like him, and we talk quite pleasantly all the
time without stopping. I think he resents it less than he imagines. He
has a good head, typically American.
When I get back in the afternoon to my friends in the Chilten Hills,
where I am staying, I work in the loggia, on the portrait of their
little daughter. She is the same age as my Margaret, and makes me feel
rather homesick. To-morrow I return to New York, my work completed.