“Oh my, no, it wasn’t,” she said placidly. “It certainly wasn’t. But, darling, did you expect me not to know that after that performance of his he wouldn’t be very popular in high places? Did you really think you had to tell me that as a confidential favor?”
“But it’s true. I heard him discussed, so I thought I’d tell you.”
“I’m sure it’s true. I know that they would be discussing him. I know also that if there were anything they could do to him, they would have done it right after his trial. My, would they have been glad to do it! So I know that he’s the only one among you who is in no danger whatever, at the moment. I know that it’s they who are afraid of him. Do you see how well I understand what you mean, darling?”
“Well, if you think you do, I must say that for my part I don’t understand you at all. I don’t know what it is you’re doing.”
“Why, I’m just setting things straight—so that you’ll know that I know how much you need me. And now that it’s straight, I’ll tell you the truth in my turn: I didn’t double-cross you, I merely failed. His performance at the trial—I didn’t expect it any more than you did.
Less. I had good reason not to expect it. But something went wrong.
I don’t know what it was. I am trying to find out. When I do, I will keep my promise. Then you’ll be free to take full credit for it and to tell your friends in high places that it’s you who’ve disarmed him.”
“Lillian,” he said nervously, “I meant it when I said that I was anxious to give you proof of my friendship—so if there’s anything-1 can do for—”
She laughed. “There isn’t. I know you meant it. But there’s nothing you can do for me. No favor of any kind. No trade. I’m a truly noncommercial person, I want nothing in return. Tough luck, Jim. You’ll just have to remain at my mercy.”
“But then why should you want to do it at all? What are you getting out of it?”
She leaned back, smiling. “This lunch. Just seeing you here. Just knowing that you had to come to me.”
An angry spark flashed in Taggart’s veiled eyes, then his eyelids narrowed slowly and he, too, leaned back in his chair, his face relaxing to a faint look of mockery and satisfaction. Even from within that unstated, unnamed, undefined muck which represented his code of values, he was able to realize which one of them was the more dependent on the other and the more contemptible.
When they parted at the door of the restaurant, she went to Rearden’s suite at the Wayne-Falkland Hotel, where she stayed occasionally in his absence. She paced the room for about half an hour, in a leisurely manner of reflection. Then she picked up the telephone, with a smoothly casual gesture, but with the purposeful air of a decision reached. She called Rearden’s office at the mills and asked Miss Ives when she expected him to return.
“Mr. Rearden will be in New York tomorrow, arriving on the Comet, Mrs. Rearden,” said Miss Ives’ clear, courteous voice.
“Tomorrow? That’s wonderful. Miss Ives, would you do me a favor?
Would you call Gertrude at the house and tell her not to expect me for dinner? I’m staying in New York overnight.”
She hung up, glanced at her watch and called the florist of the Wayne-Falkland. “This is Mrs. Henry Rearden,” she said. “I should like to have two dozen roses delivered to Mr. Rearden’s drawing room aboard the Comet. . . . Yes, today, this afternoon, when the Comet reaches Chicago. . . . No, without any card—just the flowers. . . .
Thank you ever so much.”
She telephoned James Taggart. “Jim, will you send me a pass to your passenger platforms? I want to meet my husband at the station tomorrow.”
She hesitated between Balph Eubank and Bertram Scudder, chose Balph Eubank, telephoned him and made a date for this evening’s dinner and a musical show. Then she went to take a bath1, and lay relaxing in a tub of warm water, reading a magazine devoted to problems of political economy.
It was late afternoon when the florist telephoned her. “Our Chicago office sent word that they were unable to deliver the flowers, Mrs.
Rearden,” he said, “because Mr. Rearden is not aboard the Comet.”
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Quite sure, Mrs. Rearden. Our man found at the station in Chicago that there was no compartment on the train reserved in Mr. Rearden’s name. We checked with the New York office of Taggart Transcontinental, just to make certain, and were told that Mr. Rearden’s name is not on the passenger list of the Comet.”
“I see. . . . Then cancel the order, please. . . . Thank you.”
She sat by the telephone for a moment, frowning, then called Miss Ives. “Please forgive me for being slightly scatterbrained, Miss Ives, but I was rushed and did not write it down, and now I’m not quite certain of what you said. Did you say that Mr. Rearden was coming back tomorrow? On the Comet?”
“Yes, Mrs. Rearden.”
“You have not heard of any delay or change in his plans?”
“Why, no. In fact, I spoke to Mr. Rearden about an hour ago. He telephoned from the station in Chicago, and he mentioned that he had to hurry back aboard, as the Comet was about to leave.”
“I see. Thank you.”
She leaped to her feet as soon as the click of the instrument restored her to privacy. She started pacing the room, her steps now unrhythmically tense. Then she stopped, struck by a sudden thought.
There was only one reason why a man would make a train reservation under an assumed name: if he was not traveling alone.
Her facial muscles went flowing slowly into a smile of satisfaction: this was an opportunity she had not expected.
Standing on the Terminal platform, at a point halfway down the length of the train, Lillian Rearden watched the passengers descending from the Comet. Her mouth held the hint of a smile; there was a spark of animation in her lifeless eyes; she glanced from one face to another, jerking her head with the awkward eagerness of a schoolgirl.
She was anticipating the look on Rearden’s face when, with his mistress beside him, he would see her standing there.
Her glance darted hopefully to every flashy young female stepping off the train. It was hard to watch: within an instant after the first few figures, the train had seemed to burst at the seams, flooding the platform with a solid current that swept in one direction, as if pulled by a vacuum; she could barely distinguish separate persons. The lights were more glare than illumination, picking this one strip out of a dusty, oily darkness. She needed an effort to stand still against the invisible pressure of motion.
Her first sight of Rearden in the crowd came as a shock: she had not seen him step out of a car, but there he was, walking in her direction from somewhere far down the length of the train. He was alone. He was walking with his usual purposeful speed, his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. There was no woman beside him, no companion of any kind, except a porter hurrying along with a bag she recognized as his.
In a fury of incredulous disappointment, she looked frantically for any single feminine figure he could, have left behind. She felt certain that she would recognize his choice. She saw none that could be possible. And then she saw that the last car of the train was a private car, and that the figure standing at its door, talking to some station official—a figure wearing, not minks and veils, but a rough sports coat that stressed the incomparable grace of a slender body in the confident posture of this station’s owner and center—was Dagny Taggart. Then Lillian Rearden understood.
“Lillian! What’s the matter?”
She heard Rearden’s voice, she felt his hand grasping her arm, she saw him looking at her as one looks at the object of a sudden emergency. He was looking at a blank face and an unfocused glance of terror.
“What happened? What are you doing here?”
“I . . . Hello, Henry . . . I just came to meet you . . . No special reason . . . I just wanted to meet you.” The terror was gone from her face, but she spoke in a strange, flat voice. “I wanted to see you, it was an impulse, a sudden impulse and I couldn’t resist it, because—”
“But you look . . . looked ill.”
“No . . . No, maybe I felt faint, it’s stuffy here. . . . I couldn’t resist coming, because it made me think of the days when you would have been glad to see me . . . it was a moment’s illusion to recreate for myself. . . .” The words sounded like a memorized lesson.