Lyrics continuation line

I'd like to ask about something I find a continual problem in vocal scores.

Underscore example.mscz

In the section of a score above, in measure 2 the syllable Night should be followed by an underscore indicating that this syllable is spread over two slurred notes. And it is followed by the underscore, but the underscore is so short that it is barely noticeable, and sometimes in a printed version will be all but invisible.

Of course the standard way to fix this is to use the SHIFT-} to broaden the measure, but this has two problems. First, you often have to broaden the measure quite a bit to get a noticeable underscore, resulting in a measure with an unnecessary amount of empty space, and second, broadening the measure is likely to have elbow effects later in the score which may be undesirable and hard to notice.

What I'd like is a way to lengthen the underscore just a little without broadening the measure. There's space enough to do this to the right of the underscore, or if necessary the notes could be moved slightly to the left. Is there any way to do this?