summer on mt. boab was much like summer on any other mountain, and life at hotel helicon was very like life at any other mountain hotel, save that a certain specialization due to the influence of literature and art was apparent in the present instance, giving to the house, the landscape and the intercourse of the guests a peculiar tinge, so to say, of self-consciousness and artificiality. not that these authors, thus drawn together by the grace of a man grown suddenly rich, were very different from men and[75] women of other lines in life, the real peculiarity sprang out of the obligation by which every one felt bound to make the most, in a professional way, of the situation and the environment. perhaps there was not a soul under the broad roof of hotel helicon, servants excepted, that did not secrete in its substance the material for a novel, a poem, or an essay which was to brim with the local life and flash with the local color of the region of mt. boab. yes, there appeared to be one exception. dufour constantly expressed a contempt for the mountaineers and their country.
“to be sure,” he conceded, “to be sure there is a demand for dialect stories, and i suppose that they must be written; but for my part i cannot see why we americans must stultify ourselves in the eyes of all the world by flooding our magazines, newspapers and books with yawp instead of with a truly characteristic american literature of a high order. there is some excuse for a quasi-negro literature, and even the creoles might have a niche set apart for them, but dialect, on the whole, is growing to be a literary bore.”
“but don’t you think,” said miss crabb, drawing her chin under, and projecting her upper teeth to such a degree that anything like realistic description would appear brutal, “don’t you think, mr. dufour, that mr. tolliver would make a great character in a mountain romance?”
“no. there is nothing great in a clown, as[76] such,” he promptly answered. “if tolliver is great he would be great without his jargon.”
“yes,” she admitted, “but the picturesqueness, the color, the contrast, you know, would be gone. now craddock—”
“craddock is excellent, so long as there is but one craddock, but when there are some dozens of him it is different,” said dufour, “and it is the process of multiplication that i object to. there’s cable, who is no longer a genius of one species. the writers of creole stories are swarming by the score, and, poor old uncle remus! everybody writes negro dialect now. literary claim-jumpers are utterly conscienceless. the book market will soon be utterly ruined.”
miss crabb puffed out her lean sallow cheeks and sighed heavily.
“i had hoped,” she said, “to get my novel on the market before this, but i have not yet found a publisher to suit me.”
she winced inwardly at this way of expressing the fact that every publisher, high and low, far and near, had declined her ms. out of hand; but she could not say the awful truth in its simpliest terms, while speaking to one so prosperous as dufour. she felt that she must at all hazards preserve a reasonable show of literary independence. crane came to her aid.
“one publisher is just as good as another,” he said almost savagely. “they are all thieves. they report every book a failure, save those they own outright, and yet they all get rich. i shall publish for myself my next volume.”
dufour smiled grimly and turned away. it was rather monotonous, this iteration and reiteration of so grave a charge against the moral character of publishers, and this threat of crane’s to become his own publisher was a bit of unconscious and therefore irresistible humor.
“it’s too pathetic to be laughed at,” dufour thought, as he strolled along to where miss moyne sat under a tree, “but that kentuckian actually thinks himself a poet!”
with all his good nature and kind heartedness, dufour could be prejudiced, and he drew the line at what he called the “prevailing tendency toward boastful prevarication among kentucky gentlemen.”
as he walked away he heard crane saying:
“george dunkirk & co. have stolen at least twenty thousand dollars in royalties from me during the past three years.”
it was the voice of ferris that made interrogative response:
“is dunkirk your publisher?”
“yes, or rather my robber.”
“glad of it, misery loves company.”
dufour half turned about and cast a quick glance at the speakers. he did not say anything, however, but resumed his progress toward miss moyne, who had just been joined by mrs. nancy jones black, a stoutish and oldish woman very famous on account of having assumed much and done little. mrs. nancy jones black was from boston. she was president of the woman’s antiquarian club, of the ladies’ greek[78] association, of the sappho patriotic club, of the newport fashionable near-sighted club for the study of esoteric transcendentalism, and it may not be catalogued how many more societies and clubs. she was a great poet who had never written any great poem, a great essayist whom publishers and editors avoided, whom critics regarded as below mediocrity, but of whom everybody stood in breathless awe, and she was an authority in many literary and philosophical fields of which she really knew absolutely nothing. she was a reformer and a person of influence who had made a large number of her kinsfolk famous as poets and novelists without any apparent relevancy between the fame and the literary work done. if your name were jones and you could trace out your relationship to mrs. nancy jones black and could get mrs. nancy jones black interested in your behalf, you could write four novels a year with great profit ever afterward.
as dufour approached he heard miss moyne say:
“i publish my poor little works with george dunkirk & co. and the firm has been very kind to me. i feel great encouragement, but i don’t see how i can bear this horrible newspaper familiarity and vulgarity.”
“my dear child,” said mrs. nancy jones black, placing her plump, motherly hand on the young woman’s arm, “you must not appear to notice it. do as did my daughter lois when they assailed her first little novel with sugar-plum[79] praise. why, when it began to leak out that lois was the author of a sea-side symphony the poor girl was almost smothered with praise. of course i had to take the matter in hand and under my advice lois went abroad for six months. when she returned she found herself famous.”
“talking shop?” inquired dufour, accepting the offer of a place on the bench beside mrs. black.
“yes,” said she, with a comprehensive wave of her hand, “i am taking miss moyne under my wing, so to say, and am offering her the comfort of my experience. she is a genius whom it doesn’t spoil to praise. she’s going to be the next sensation in the east.”
“i suggested as much to her,” said dufour. “she is already on a strong wave, but she must try and avoid being refractory, you know.” he said this in a straightforward, business way, but his voice was touched with a certain sort of admirable tenderness.
miss moyne was looking out over the deep, hazy valley, her cheeks still warm with the thought of that newspaper portrait with its shabby clothes and towsled bangs. what was fame, bought at such a price! she bridled a little, but did not turn her head as she said.
“i am not refractory, i am indignant, and i have a right to be. they cannot justify the liberty they have taken, besides i will not accept notoriety—i—”
“there, now, dear, that is what lois said, and[80] milton john jones, my nephew, was at first bound that he wouldn’t let tom, my brother, advertise him; but he soon saw his way clear, i assure you, and now he publishes four serials at once. be prudent, dear, be prudent.”
“but the idea of picturing me with great barbaric rings in my ears and with a corkscrew curl on each side and—”
dufour interrupted her with a laugh almost hearty enough to be called a guffaw, and mrs. black smiled indulgently as if at a clever child which must be led, not driven.
“being conscious that you really are stylish and beautiful, you needn’t care for the picture,” said dufour, in a tone of sturdy sincerity.
“there is nothing so effective as a foil,” added mrs. black.
miss moyne arose and with her pretty chin slightly elevated walked away.
“how beautiful she is!” exclaimed dufour, gazing after her, “and i am delighted to know that you are taking an interest in her.”
mrs. black smiled complacently, and with a bland sidewise glance at him, remarked:
“she grows upon one.”
“yes,” said he, with self-satisfied obtuseness, “yes, she is magnetic, she is a genuine genius.”
“precisely, she stirs one’s heart strangely,” replied mrs. black.
“yes, i have noted that; it’s very remarkable.”
“you should speak of it to her at the first opportunity.”
dufour started a little, flushed and finally laughed as one does who discovers a bit of clever and harmless treachery.
“if i only dared,” he presently said, with something very like fervor in his tone. “if i only dared.”
mrs. black looked at him a moment, as if measuring in her mind his degree of worthiness, then with a wave of her hand she said:
“never do you dare to dare. mr. crane stands right in your path.”
dufour leaped to his feet with the nimbleness and dangerous celerity of a tiger.
“crane!” he exclaimed with a world of contempt in his voice, “if he—” but he stopped short and laughed at himself.
mrs. black looked at him with a patronizing expression in her eyes.
“leave it to me,” she said, in her most insinuating tone.
