“Thank goodness, we’re out of the Land of Self-Consciousness,” said Olivia. “The Great North Road is too big a thing.”
Their eyes met in a smile.
“I don’t forget your love of big things,” said he. “It’s inspiring. Yes. It’s a big thing. And it doesn’t really begin in London. It starts from Land’s End—and it goes on and on through the heart of England and through the heart of Scotland carrying two nations’ history on its flanks, caring for nothing but its appointed task, until it sighs at John o’ Groats and says: ‘My duty’s done.’ There’s nothing that stirs one’s imagination more than a great road or a great river. Somehow I prefer the road.”
“You’re nearer to it because it was made by man.”
“How our minds work together!” he cried admiringly “I only have to say half a thing and you complete it. More than that—you give my meaningless ideas meaning. Yes. God’s works are great. But we can’t measure them. We have no scale for God, But we have for Man, and so Man’s big works thrill us and compel us.”
“What big thing could we do?” asked Olivia.
“Do you mean humanity—or you and I together?”
“Two human beings thinking alike, and free and honest.” Instinctively she took his arm and her step danced in time with his. “Oh, you don’t know how good it is to feel real. Let us do something big in the world. What can we do?”
“You can help me to the very biggest thing in all the universe—for me,” he cried, pressing her arm tight against him.
Her pulses throbbed. She knew that further argument on her part would be but exquisite playing with words. The hour which, in her maidenly uncertainty she had dreaded, had now come, and all fear had passed away. Yes; now she was real; now she was certain that her love was real. Real man, real woman. Her heart leaped to him with almost the shock of physical pain. Again in a flash she swept the Lydian and the Blenkiron firmament and exulted. Yet in her happiness she said with very foolish and with very feminine guile: