Page:Meanwhile (1927).pdf/58

 "Have you read all the books we've discussed these last few weeks?" he asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Mercy no! Have you?"

Grover shook his head.

"Naughty child!"

They swung arms in contentment, and wandered away from the road across the fields.

"Have you read Emerson, on Love?" asked Sophie.

"Only in school. . . He made love sound like a Christian duty."

"Whereas it's a pagan prerogative."

"It's the fault of these placid fields and respectable trees. With Nature setting such an orderly example what could you expect? The only people who've understood love are those for whom Nature has manifested herself in terrific superlatives."

"How do you know?"

"I don't. I'm only—sort of quoting myself. . . Of course if this were Aldergrove we could sit on that fallen tree over there on the edge of the woods and revel in the countryside. For in Aldergrove we'd be in the sort of clothes you sit on fallen trees in."

"Let's try and see what it's like."

The fallen tree was in a little depression. "I thought of course there'd be a babbling brook down there," Grover remarked. "But apparently there's only an unused river-bed—rivulet-bed." He felt himself blushing again, which was positively crass.

"One does feel rather citified," Sophie admitted,