It was of no use, however, as he was obliged to acknowledge. The night train which did not pass till midnight was the only one possible. As a matter of fact he did not go till next morning, subdued in his ardour of departure by a whole afternoon spent in the society of Elly, with whose freedom for that day nobody interfered. And indeed the afternoon was passed in a somewhat strange way, in the parlour which was so connected with all the associations of John’s youthful life, where he and she bending over the table with their heads close together went over the plans, of which John made a sketch for Elly’s benefit, of the great scheme which he was convinced was to make his fortune. It was, let us say, the drainage of the Thames valley, than which there is no more urgently wanted piece of engineering, nor one which would bring a young man more fame and money.
John drew rude plans and diagrams of all kinds, while Elly looked on. He became enthusiastic in his descriptions, laying out everything before her, the manner in which the waste was to be carried away so as to do good and not harm, how floods were to be prevented, how the low-lying lands near the river were to be protected and utilised. John’s eyes glowed as he set it all forth, and Elly said, ‘I see!’ ‘I understand,’ with sympathetic emotion and many a lyric of praise; but whether she did really see so clearly as she said, remains, perhaps, open to doubt. She believed, at all events, which comes to the same thing, and without being at all humbled or troubled by her inability to fathom the expedients or comprehend the calculations. At sixteen she would not have given in so easily. She would have worked out the diagrams, and compelled herself to know what it was all about. But now she saw, after a sort, through John’s eyes and was satisfied. He got perhaps more applause than was good for him from Elly, who he honestly believed followed all his elucidations, and from Susie, who understood none of them, and did not pretend to know anything save that he was very clever, the cleverest of engineers, a conclusion which, with deprecations, John was not perhaps altogether unwilling to accept. In this way they spent a few hours of such happiness as comes but rarely in youthful life. It was better than the more emotional rapture of the young lover’s paradise, for it had so many finer elements in it to their own happy consciousness. Their life was to be built upon this grand work, which was a work which would save life, which would increase comfort, which would make wealth, not only to themselves but to others. It was the plan which had ‘pleased their childish thought.’ It was Elly’s dream, which she had transferred with all her girl’s enthusiasm to the steady working brain, full of impulses more lasting than hers, and a training infinitely stronger, which had made that suggestion into a reality.