‘Are you enjoying your trip, Miss Van Brugh?’

‘Yes, sir. This railroad is more of a marvel than I could have imagined.’

Collis Edmonds nodded again. ‘Yes,’ he said, as if he were irked by compliments about his achievements. ‘A great marvel. A great … feat of human … what’s-its-name … endeavour.’

There was an odd, tight silence. Collis Edmonds didn’t seem to have anything to say, yet he didn’t make any move to leave. At last Emily said cautiously, ‘Do you think, Mr Edmonds, I might ask you a few questions?’

‘Questions? Of course you may. What do you want to know?’

‘I want to know why you built the railroad.’

He turned towards her and focused his eyes on her sharply. ‘You want to know why?’

‘Yes.’

‘My dear young lady … why on earth do you think?’

‘I’m not sure. Having seen you, and now having met you, I’m not at all certain.’

He raised his hands. ‘Well, for goodness sake, I built it to make money. I built it because it was needed. I built it because — well, I built it because I did, that’s all.’

Emily said nothing, but sat framed by the California sunshine that shone through the parlour car’s dusty window, her pencil neatly raised in her hand, her notepad unmarked.

‘Aren’t you going to write that down?’ asked Collis Edmonds, after a long pause. ‘No? Then what else would you like? Some facts? Some figures? We built thirty-seven miles of snowsheds through these mountains between ’68 and ’69, using up sixty-five million board feet of timber. There are fifteen tunnels taking the Sierra Pacific through the rock; and on occasions the granite was so hard that we could progress only eight inches in twenty-four hours. Is that the kind of thing? The summit is seven thousand, one hundred and fifty-six feet above mean sea level, and in winter the snow can be anything up to forty feet deep.’

He stopped. Then he said, much more quietly, ‘You’re not making any notes at all.’

Emily lowered her eyes. Collis Edmonds watched her for a moment, and then came across to her table, drew out a chair, and sat down. He continued to watch her with an expression that was half amused, half intrigued, his chin resting on his fist.

‘You really want to know why, don’t you?’ he asked her.

Emily glanced up. ‘You must think I’m being very ill-mannered,’ she said. ‘But I do believe you had a special purpose. The way you stand on the platform of your car … the way you look out at the mountains.’

‘You have a very romantic turn of mind,’ said Collis Edmonds. ‘Why should you suppose that my mind works in the same way? I’m a railroad builder. Who could be more pragmatic?’

‘Well … perhaps I’m mistaken,’ Emily replied. ‘In which case you must accept my apologies.’