Francisco had not glanced at Rearden once while speaking; but the moment he finished, his eyes went straight to Rearden’s face. Rearden stood motionless, seeing nothing but Francisco d’Anconia across the moving figures and angry voices between them.
There were people who had listened, but now hurried away, and people who said, “It’s horrible!”—”It’s not true!”—”How vicious and selfish!”—saying it loudly and guardedly at once, as if wishing that their neighbors would hear them, but hoping that Francisco would not.
“Senor d’Anconia,” declared the woman with the earrings, “I don’t agree with you!”
“If you can refute a single sentence I uttered, madame, I shall hear it gratefully.”
“Oh, I can’t answer you. I don’t have any answers, my mind doesn’t work that way, but I don’t feel that you’re right, so I know that you’re wrong.”
“How do you know it?”
“I feel it. I don’t go by my head, but by my heart. You might be good at logic, but you’re heartless.”
“Madame, when we’ll see men dying of starvation around us, your heart won’t be of any earthly use to save them. And I’m heartless enough to say that when you’ll scream, ‘But I didn’t know it!’—you will not be forgiven.”
The woman turned away, a shudder running through the flesh of her cheeks and through the angry tremor of her voice: “Well, it’s certainly a funny way to talk at a party!”
A portly man with evasive eyes said loudly, his tone of forced cheerfulness suggesting that his sole concern in any issue was not to let it become unpleasant, “If this is the way you feel about money, senor, I think I’m darn glad that I’ve got a goodly piece of d’Anconia Copper stock.”
Francisco said gravely, “I suggest that you think twice, sir.”
Rearden started toward him—and Francisco, who had not seemed to look in his direction, moved to meet him at once, as if the others had never existed.
“Hello,” said Rearden simply, easily, as to a childhood friend; he was smiling.
He saw his own smile reflected in Francisco’s face. “Hello.”
“I want to speak to you.”
“To whom do you think I’ve been speaking for the last quarter of an hour?”
Rearden chuckled, in the manner of acknowledging an opponent’s round. “I didn’t think you had noticed me.”
“I noticed, when I came in, that you were one of the only two persons in this room who were glad to see me.”
“Aren’t you being presumptuous?”
“No—grateful.”
“Who was the other person glad to see you?”
Francisco shrugged and said lightly, “A woman.”
Rearden noticed that Francisco had led him aside, away from the group, in so skillfully natural a manner that neither he nor the others had known it was being done intentionally.
“I didn’t expect to find you here,” said Francisco. “You shouldn’t have come to this party.”
“Why not?”
“May I ask what made you come?”
“My wife was anxious to accept the invitation.”
“Forgive me if I put it in such form, but it would have been more proper and less dangerous if she had asked you to take her on a tour of whorehouses.”
“What danger are you talking about?”
“Mr. Rearden, you do not know these people’s way of doing business or how they interpret your presence here. In your code, but not in theirs, accepting a man’s hospitality is a token of good will, a declaration that you and your host stand on terms of a civilized relationship.
Don’t give them that kind of sanction.”
“Then why did you come here?”
Francisco shrugged gaily. “Oh, I—it doesn’t matter what I do. I’m only a party hound.”
“What are you doing at this party?”
“Just looking for conquests.”
“Found any?”
His face suddenly earnest, Francisco answered gravely, almost solemnly, “Yes—what I think is going to be my best and greatest.”
Rearden’s anger was involuntary, the cry, not of reproach, but of despair: “How can you waste yourself that way?”
The faint suggestion of a smile, like the rise of a distant light, came into Francisco’s eyes as he asked, “Do you care to admit that you care about it?”
“You’re going to hear a few more admissions, if that’s what you’re after. Before I met you, I used to wonder how you could waste a fortune such as yours. Now it’s worse, because I can’t despise you as I did, as I’d like to, yet the question is much more terrible: How can you waste a mind such as yours?”
“I don’t think I’m wasting it right now.”
“I don’t know whether there’s ever been anything that meant a damn to you—but I’m going to tell you what I’ve never said to anyone before. When I met you, do you remember that you said you wanted to offer me your gratitude?”
There was no trace of amusement left in Francisco’s eyes; Rearden had never faced so solemn a look of respect, “Yes, Mr. Rearden,” he answered quietly.
“I told you that I didn’t need it and I insulted you for it. All right, you’ve won. That speech you made tonight—that was what you were offering me, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, Mr. Rearden.”
“It was more than gratitude, and I needed the gratitude; it was more than admiration, and I needed that, too; it was much more than any word I can find, it will take me days to think of all that it’s given me—but one thing I do know: I needed it. I’ve never made an admission of this kind, because I’ve never cried for anyone’s help. If it amused you to guess that I was glad to see you, you have something real to laugh about now, if you wish.”
“It might take me a few years, but I will prove to you that these are the things I do not laugh about.”
“Prove it now—by answering one question: Why don’t you practice what you preach?”
“Are you sure that I don’t?”
“If the things you said are true, if you have the greatness to know it, you should have been the leading industrialist of the world by now.”
Francisco said gravely, as he had said to the portly man, but with an odd note of gentleness in his voice, “I suggest that you think twice, Mr. Rearden.”
“I’ve thought about you more than I care to admit. I have found no answer.”
“Let me give you a hint: If the things I said are true, who is the guiltiest man in this room tonight?”
“I suppose—James Taggart?”
“No, Mr. Rearden, it is not James Taggart. But you must define the guilt and choose the man yourself.”
“A few years ago, I would have said that it’s you. I still think that that’s what I ought to say. But I’m almost in the position of that fool woman who spoke to you: every reason I know tells me that you’re guilty—and yet I can’t feel it.”
“You are making the same mistake as that woman, Mr. Rearden, though in a nobler form.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean much more than just your judgment of me. That woman and all those like her keep evading the thoughts which they know to be good. You keep pushing out of your mind the thoughts which you believe to be evil. They do it, because they want to avoid effort. You do it, because you won’t permit yourself to consider anything that would spare y6u. They indulge their emotions at any cost. You sacrifice your emotions as the first cost of any problem. They are willing to bear nothing. You are willing to bear anything. They keep evading responsibility. You keep assuming it. But don’t you see that the essential error is the same? Any refusal to recognize reality, for any reason whatever, has disastrous consequences. There are no evil thoughts except one: the refusal to think. Don’t ignore your own desires, Mr.
Rearden. Don’t sacrifice them. Examine their cause. There is a limit to how much you should have to bear.”
“How did you know this about me?”
“I made the same mistake, once. But not for long.”
“I wish—” Rearden began and stopped abruptly.
Francisco smiled. “Afraid to wish, Mr. Rearden?”
“I wish I could permit myself to like you as much as I do.”
“I’d give—” Francisco stopped; inexplicably, Rearden saw the look of an emotion which he could not define, yet felt certain to be pain; he saw Francisco’s first moment of hesitation. “Mr. Rearden, do you own any d’Anconia Copper stock?”
Rearden looked at him, bewildered. “No.”
“Some day, you’ll know what treason I’m committing right now, but . . . Don’t ever buy any d’Anconia Copper stock. Don’t ever deal with d’Anconia Copper in any way.”
“Why?”
“When you’ll learn the full reason, you’ll know whether there’s ever been anything—or anyone—that meant a damn to me, and . . . and how much he did mean.”
Rearden frowned: he had remembered something. “I wouldn’t deal with your company. Didn’t you call them the men of the double standard? Aren’t you one of the looters who is growing rich right now by means of directives?”