it caused quite a commotion on mt. boab when bartley hubbard and miss henrietta stackpole, newspaper people from boston, arrived at hotel helicon. miss stackpole had just returned from europe, and bartley hubbard had run down from boston for a week to get some points for his paper. she had met mr. henry james on the continent and hubbard had dined with mr. howells just before leaving boston.
no two persons in all the world would have been less welcome among the guests at the hotel, just then, than were these professional reporters. of course everybody tried to give them a cordial greeting, but they were classed along with miss crabb as dangerous characters whom it would be folly to snub. miss moyne was in downright terror of them, associating the thought of them with those ineffable pictures of herself which were still appearing at second and third hand in the “patent insides” of the country journals, but she was very good to them, and miss stackpole at once attached herself to her unshakably. hubbard did likewise with little mrs. philpot, who amused him mightily with her strictures upon analytical realism in fiction.
“i do think that mr. howells treated you most shamefully,” she said to him. “he had no right to represent you as a disagreeable person who was cruel to his wife and who had no moral stamina.”
hubbard laughed as one who hears an absurd joke. “oh, howells and i have an understanding. we are really great friends,” he said. “i sat to him for my portrait and i really think he flattered me. i managed to keep him from seeing some of my ugliest lines.”
“now you are not quite sincere,” said mrs. philpot, glancing over him from head to foot. “you are not so bad as he made you out to be. it’s one of mr. howells’s hobbies to represent men as rather flabby nonentities and women as invalids or dolls.”
“he’s got the men down fine,” replied hubbard, “but i guess he is rather light on women. you will admit, however, that he dissects feminine meanness and inconsequence with a deft turn.”
“he makes fun of women,” said mrs. philpot, a little testily, “he caricatures them, wreaks his humor on them; but you know very well that he misrepresents them even in his most serious and quasi truthful moods.”
hubbard laughed, and there was something essentially vulgar in the notes of the laugh. mrs. philpot admitted this mentally, and she found herself shrinking from his steadfast but almost conscienceless eyes.
“i imagine i shouldn’t be as bad a husband as he did me into, but—”
mrs. philpot interrupted him with a start and a little cry.
“dear me! and aren’t you married?” she[100] asked in exclamatory deprecation of what his words had implied.
he laughed again very coarsely and looked at her with eyes that almost lured. “married!” he exclaimed, “do i look like a marrying man? a newspaper man can’t afford to marry.”
“how strange,” reflected mrs. philpot, “how funny, and mr. howells calls himself a realist!”
“realist!” laughed hubbard, “why he does not know enough about the actual world to be competent to purchase a family horse. he’s a capital fellow, good and true and kind-hearted, but what does he know about affairs? he doesn’t even know how to flatter women!”
“how absurd!” exclaimed little mrs. philpot, but hubbard could not be sure for the life of him just what she meant the expression to characterize.
“and you like mr. howells?” she inquired.
“like him! everybody likes him,” he cordially said.
“well, you are quite different from miss crabb. she hates maurice thompson for putting her into a story.”
“oh, well,” said hubbard, indifferently, “women are not like men. they take life more seriously. if thompson had had more experience he would not have tampered with a newspaper woman. he’s got the whole crew down on him. miss stackpole hates him almost as fiercely as she hates henry james.”
“i don’t blame her,” exclaimed mrs. philpot, “it’s mean and contemptible for men to caricature women.”
“oh, i don’t know,” yawned hubbard, “it all goes in a lifetime.”
at this opportune moment miss crabb and miss stackpole joined them, coming arm in arm. miss crabb looking all the more sallow and slender in comparison with the plump, well-fed appearance of her companion.
“may i introduce you to miss crabb of the ringville star, mr. hubbard,” miss stackpole asked, in a high but by no means rich voice, as she fastened her steady, button-like eyes on mrs. philpot.
hubbard arose lazily and went through the process of introduction perfunctorily, giving miss crabb a sweeping but indifferent glance.
“there’s an impromptu pedestrian excursion on hand,” said miss stackpole, “and i feel bound to go. one of the gentlemen has discovered a hermit’s cabin down a ravine near here, and he offers to personally conduct a party to it. you will go, mr. hubbard?”
“go! i should remark that i will. you don’t get a scoop of that item, i assure you.”
miss stackpole was a plump and rather pretty young woman, fairly well dressed in drab drapery. she stood firmly on her feet and had an air of self-reliance and self-control in strong contrast with the fussy, nervous manner of miss crabb.
mrs. philpot surveyed the two young women[102] with that comprehensive, critical glance which takes in everything that is visible, and quickly enough she made up her comparison and estimate of them.
she decided that miss crabb had no style, no savoir faire, no repose; but then miss stackpole was forward, almost impudent in appearance, and her greater ease of manner was really the ease that comes of a long training in intrusiveness, and of rubbing against an older civilization. she felt quite distinctly the decided dash of vulgarity in the three newspaper representatives before her, and she could not help suspecting that it would not be safe to judge the press reporters by these examples.
the question arose in her mind whether after all howells and henry james and maurice thompson had acted fairly in taking these as representative newspaper people.
she had met a great many newspaper people and had learned to like them as a class; she had many good and helpful friends among them.
unconsciously she was showing to all present that she was dissecting the three reporters. her unfavorable opinion of them slowly took expression in her tell-tale face. not that she wholly disliked or distrusted them; she really pitied them. how could they be content to live such a life, dependent upon what they could make by meddling, so to speak?
then too, she felt a vague shame, a chagrin, a regret that real people must be put into works of fiction with all the seamy side of their natures turned out to the world’s eye.
“we’re in for it,” exclaimed hubbard, “mrs. philpot is making a study of us as a group. see the dreaming look in her eyes!”
“oh, no! she never studies anybody or anything,” said miss crabb. “poor little woman, real life is a constant puzzle to her, and she makes not the slightest effort to understand it.”
hubbard and miss stackpole glanced curiously at each other and then at miss crabb. evidently their thought was a common one.
