One evening Arthur Withers and Rose Lomas sat together on their
favourite stile talking in low whispers. The summer dusk lagged, and
the air about them was so still that between their softly spoken words
they could hear the talk of innumerable insects in the grass at their
feet. There had been few interruptions. So familiar had their figures
become in that position, that it had grown to be almost a tradition
among the people who passed that way during the evening to cross the
stile without disturbing the lovers. There are ways, too, of sitting
upon a stile without incommoding the casual pedestrian.
This evening there had been one or two labourers with red, wrinkled
faces, too hungry and tired to make much comment. Then Mrs. Flack had
come hurrying along with her black bag (they had to get off for her as
she was not so young as she had been), and soon afterwards the Curate,
who beamed affably, and enquired when it was to be. He was so looking
forward to uniting them.
But it was not to be yet. That was the burden of their subdued
murmurings. It couldn't be done on Arthur's present income, and he was
still less certain than ever that it could be regarded as cumulative
or even permanent. Rose understood. To her country-bred mind it was
marvellous that Arthur should succeed in adding up so many figures
during the course of a day, even though the result did not always meet
with the approval of the bank authorities. They would have to wait.
"It's such a responsibility," said Arthur, presently. "If we were to
get married, I mean. I might come home with the sack any day."
"I shouldn't mind," protested Rose, "but I couldn't bear you to feel
like that about it. We shall have to wait."
"I wonder why I'm not clever," Arthur remarked, after a long pause.
Rose clutched him indignantly towards her.
"Oh, you are. The things you say. The things you think! I never knew."
And although he shook his head vigorously, Arthur inwardly contemplated
that region in his mind wherein existed all the matters that comprised
a knowledge quite irrelevant to the practical affairs of life but very
useful for the purpose of living.
"I _do_ have ideas," he admitted, thoughtfully. "I suppose I'm really
what you might call an intellectual sort of chap."
"Dreadfully," said Rose, without a trace of disrespect. "The books you
read!"
"Of course, I'm only a sort of amateur," Arthur continued, modestly.
"But I do like books, and I can generally get at what a chap's driving
at--in a way."
He stared hard at a grasshopper, who seemed to be considering the
possibility of an enormous leap, for his great hind legs were taut and
his long feelers caressed the air. "Sometimes I think the chaps who
write books must be a bit like me--in a way. They seem to like the same
things as I do. There's a lot about beauty in most books, and I like
beauty, don't you?"
"Yes," breathed Rose, wondering what exactly he meant.
The grasshopper hopped and landed with a quite distinct thud, almost at
their feet. They both looked at it without thinking about it at all.
But its advent produced a pause.
"In the books I've read," Arthur resumed, "there's generally a chap
whom you might regard as being not much good at anything and yet pretty
decent."
"Heroes," suggested Rose, whose knowledge of literature was not very
wide.
"Sometimes. Chaps people don't understand. That's because they like
beauty more than anything else, and not many people really care about
beauty. They only think of it when they see a sunset or look at
pictures. If you can forget beauty, then you're alright. Nobody thinks
you're strange. You don't have any difficulties."
The slight stirring of Rose's body, and a sigh so low that Arthur
scarcely heard it, seemed to suggest that matters were becoming rather
too deep for comprehension. The grasshopper sprung again, and this time
landed upon the stile, where he remained for a long while, as though
wondering what perversion of the common sense natural to grasshoppers
could have prompted him to choose so barren a landing place. During
the long pause Rose did not see the look of strained perplexity upon
Arthur's face.
"But they always get married," he said, suddenly. "The chaps in books,
I mean. They always get married in the end."
"Oh, Arthur!" Her hand went up to pull down his, for the moment,
unwilling head. "Oh, Arthur, we will get married some day."
"You're so pretty," he whispered. "You're so very beautiful."
"Oh, am I? Do you think so? I'm so glad--I'm so sorry."
Her tears gushed forth, inexplicably, even to Arthur, who thought he
understood so much that was difficult to understand. He had let loose
his feeling without any real knowledge of its depth, or that which it
aroused in Rose.
"I can't bear you not to have me," she sobbed. "It's cruel. It ought to
be arranged. People ought to understand."
Arthur was startled back to common sense. "They don't," he whispered,
as they held one another in trembling arms. "If they did they would be
like us."
And then he remembered a possible sequel to the search for beauty.
"Besides," he added, in a formal whisper, "there's the children."