The possibility of any given gratification begets a cumulative sense of its necessity.Stephen gave the rein to his imagination,and felt more intensely than he had felt for many months that,without Elfride,his life would never be any great pleasure to himself,or honour to his Maker.
They sat by the fire,chatting on external and random subjects,neither caring to be the first to approach the matter each most longed to discuss.On the table with the periodicals lay two or three pocket-books,one of them being open.Knight seeing from the exposed page that the contents were sketches only,began turning the leaves over carelessly with his finger.When,some time later,Stephen was out of the room,Knight proceeded to pass the interval by looking at the sketches more carefully.
The first crude ideas,pertaining to dwellings of all kinds,were roughly outlined on the different pages.Antiquities had been copied;fragments of Indian columns,colossal statues,and outlandish ornament from the temples of Elephanta and Kenneri,were carelessly intruded upon by outlines of modern doors,windows,roofs,cooking-stoves,and household furniture;everything,in short,which comes within the range of a practising architects experience,who travels with his eyes open.Among these occasionally appeared rough delineations of mediaeval subjects for carving or illumination--heads of Virgins,Saints,and Prophets.