"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."