Collis cleared his throat. ‘I see. Well, let’s not speak of it anymore. I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’

She lifted her face to his. ‘You didn’t,’ she said. ‘I can’t pretend that I haven’t been married before, and lain with another man, any more than you can pretend to me that you haven’t lain with other women. We’re old enough, aren’t we, to talk of such things freely? We’re husband and wife, as well as lovers.’

‘Well, yes,’ Collis answered uncomfortably.

She smiled. ‘If you want to talk of progeny, then of course we shall. But my feeling is that Charles was right. We shall have two children — our natural son, and our railroad. And if you want to know which of those is most important to me now, then I am bound to say the railroad.’

Collis released his arm from hers and walked over to the chiffonier. He unstoppered the sherry decanter, poured himself a large glass, and then stood looking at Hannah while he sipped, his eyes questioning, but without saying a word.

‘You fell out with Theodore because you told him the railroad would make you great,’ she said huskily, ‘and that the goal of greatness justifies any and all means which may be necessary to achieve it.’

‘Yes,’ said Collis.

‘Well, I agree with you, fiercely,’ she said, turning towards him. ‘Because the railroad will make you rich, and celebrated, and powerful, and I know that is what you want to be. You will fulfil yourself, if you build this railroad. You will be able to live any way you want, and in any company you desire. Men like Laurence Melford will seem like cheap storekeepers in comparison: and when they talk of California in years to come, they won’t talk first of Vallejo or of Frémont. They will talk of you, of Collis Edmonds, who laid the first transcontinental railroad across the High Sierras.’

Collis said nothing. But Hannah came towards him with a sweep of her skirts and held his hand.

‘Whatever we have to do, you and I, to make this railroad possible, we shall,’ she said. ‘I have learned a bitter lesson about life from my marriage to Walter — that conventional morality and godliness are not necessarily one. For is it godly to be unhappy and unfulfilled? If Walter had not been killed, I still would have divorced him, in the face of the church and of polite society; and whatever you need to do to find your heart’s desire, your railroad, whether it is respectable or not, I will be there to help you.’

She hesitated, then said, ‘I know what kind of a man you are, Collis. Even more than you do yourself, perhaps. I have taken you on as my husband because I love you, but also because I want to see your dream become real, and to be part of your dream myself.’

There was a long silence, two or three minutes or even more. At last Hannah said, ‘Do you understand me?’