“All right, Hank,” she said, “we’re going ahead with a new Rearden Metal bridge. This is the official order of the official owner of the John Galt Line.”
He smiled, looking down at the drawings of the bridge spread in the light on his desk. “Have you had a chance to examine the scheme we submitted?”
“Yes. You don’t need my comments or compliments. The order says it.”
“Very well. Thank you. I’ll start rolling the Metal”
“Don’t you want to ask whether the John Galt Line is in a position to place orders or to function?”
“I don’t need to. Your coming here says it,”
She smiled. “True. It’s all set, Hank. I came to tell you that and to discuss the details of the bridge in person.”
“All right, I am curious: who are the bondholders of the John Galt Line?”
“I don’t think any of them could afford it. All of them have growing enterprises. All of them needed their money for their own concerns.
But they needed the Line and they did not ask anyone for help.” She took a paper out of her bag. “Here’s John Galt, Inc.,” she said, handing it across the desk.
He knew most of the names on the list: “Ellis.. Wyatt, Wyatt Oil, Colorado. Ted Nielsen, Nielsen Motors, Colorado. Lawrence Hammond, Hammond Cars, Colorado. Andrew Stockton, Stockton Foundry, Colorado.” There were a few from other states; he noticed the name: “Kenneth Danagger, Danagger Coal, Pennsylvania.” The amounts of their subscriptions varied, from sums in five figures to six.
He reached for his fountain pen, wrote at the bottom of the list “Henry Rearden, Rearden Steel, Pennsylvania—$1,000,000” and tossed the list back to her.
“Hank,” she said quietly, “I didn’t want you- in on this. You’ve invested so much in Rearden Metal that it’s worse for you than for any of us. You can’t afford another risk.”
“I never accept favors,” he answered coldly.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t ask people to take greater chances on my ventures than I take myself. If it’s a gamble, I’ll match anybody’s gambling. Didn’t you say that that track was my first showcase?”
She inclined her head and said gravely, “All right. Thank you.”
“Incidentally, I don’t expect to lose this money. I am aware of the conditions under which these bonds can be converted into stock at my option. I therefore expect to make an inordinate profit—and you’re going to earn it for me.”
She laughed. “God, Hank, I’ve spoken to so many yellow fools that they’ve almost infected me into thinking of the Line as of a hopeless loss! Thanks for reminding me. Yes, I think I’ll earn your inordinate profit for you.”
“If it weren’t for the yellow fools, there wouldn’t be any risk in it at all. But we have to beat them. We will.” He reached for two telegrams from among the papers on his desk. “There are still a few men in existence.” He extended the telegrams. “I think you’d like to see these.”
One of them read: “I had intended to undertake it in two years, but the statement of the State Science Institute compels me to proceed at once. Consider this a commitment for the construction of a 12inch pipe line of Rearden Metal, 600 miles, Colorado to Kansas City.
Details follow. Ellis Wyatt.”
The other read: “Re our discussion of my order. Go ahead. Ken Danagger.”
He added, in explanation, “He wasn’t prepared to proceed at once, either. It’s eight thousand tons of Rearden Metal. Structural metal.
For coal mines.”
They glanced at each other and smiled. They needed no further comment.
He glanced down, as she handed the telegrams back to him. The skin of her hand looked transparent in the light, on the edge of his desk, a young girl’s hand with long, thin fingers, relaxed for a moment, defenseless.
“The Stockton Foundry in Colorado,” she said, “is going to finish that order for me—the one that the Amalgamated Switch and Signal Company ran out on. They’re going to get in touch with you about the Metal.”
“They have already. What have you done about the construction crews?”
“Nealy’s engineers are staying on, the best ones, those I need. And most of the foremen, too. It won’t be too hard to keep them going.
Nealy wasn’t of much use, anyway.”
“What about labor?”
“More applicants than I can hire. I don’t think the union is going to interfere. Most of the applicants are giving phony names. They’re union members. They need the work desperately. I’ll have a few guards on the Line, but I don’t expect any trouble.”
“What about your brother Jim’s Board of Directors?”
“They’re all scrambling to get statements into the newspapers to the effect that they have no connection whatever with the John Galt Line and how reprehensible an undertaking they think it is. They agreed to everything I asked.”
The line of her shoulders looked taut, yet thrown back easily, as if poised for flight. Tension seemed natural to her, not a sign of anxiety, but a sign of enjoyment; the tension of her whole body, under the gray suit, half-visible in the darkness, “Eddie Willers has taken over the office of Operating Vice-President,” she said. “If you need anything, get in touch with him. I’m leaving for Colorado tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes. We have to make up time. We’ve lost a week.”
“Flying your own plane?”
“Yes. I’ll be back in about ten days, I intend to be in New York once or twice a month.”
“Where will you live out there?”
“On the site. In my own railway car—that is, Eddie’s car, which I’m borrowing.”
“Will you be safe?”
“Safe from what?” Then she laughed, startled. “Why, Hank, it’s the first time you’ve ever thought that I wasn’t a man. Of coarse I’ll be safe.”
He was not looking at her; he was looking at a sheet of figures on his desk. “I’ve had my engineers prepare a breakdown of the cost of the bridge,” he said, “and an approximate schedule of the construction time required. That is what I wanted to discuss with you.” He extended the papers. She settled back to read them.
A wedge of light fell across her face. He saw the firm, sensual mouth in sharp outline. Then she leaned back a little, and he saw only a suggestion of its shape and the dark lines of her lowered lashes.
Haven’t I?—he thought. Haven’t I thought of it since the first time I saw you? Haven’t I thought of nothing else for two years? . . . He sat motionless, looking at her. He heard the words he had never allowed himself to form, the words he had felt, known, yet had not faced, had hoped to destroy by never letting them be said within his own mind. Now it was as sudden and shocking as if he were saying it to her. . . . Since the first time I saw you . . . Nothing but your body, that mouth of yours, and the way your eyes would look at me, if . . . Through every sentence I ever said to you, through every conference you thought so safe, through the importance of all the issues we discussed . . . You trusted me, didn’t you? To recognize your greatness? To think of you as you deserved—as if you were a man?
. . . Don’t you suppose I know how much I’ve betrayed? The only bright encounter of my life—the only person I respected—the best businessman I know—my ally—my partner in a desperate battle . . .
The lowest of all desires—as my answer to the highest I’ve met . . .
Do you know what I am? I thought of it, because it should have been unthinkable. For that degrading need, which should never touch you, I have never wanted anyone but you . . . I hadn’t known what it was like, to want it, until I saw you for the first time. I had thought: Not I, I couldn’t be broken by it . . . Since then . . . for two years . . . with not a moment’s respite . . . Do you know what it’s like, to want it? Would you wish to hear what I thought when I looked at you . . . when I lay awake at night . . . when I heard your voice over a telephone wire . . . when I worked, but could not drive it away?
. . . To bring you down to things you can’t conceive—and to know that it’s I who have done it. To reduce you to a body, to teach you an animal’s pleasure, to see you need it, to see you asking me for it, to see your wonderful spirit dependent upon the obscenity of your need. To watch you as you are, as you face the world with your clean, proud strength—then to see you, in my bed, submitting to any infamous whim I may devise, to any act which I’ll perform for the sole purpose of watching your dishonor and to which you’ll submit for the sake of an unspeakable sensation . . . I want you—and may I be damned for it! . . .