Atlas Shrugged [174]
"How was the banquet?" she asked.
"Fine. I escaped as soon as I could. Why didn't you come? You were invited."
"I didn't want to see you in public."
He glanced at her, as if stressing that he noted the full meaning of her answer; then the lines of his face moved to the hint of an amused smile. "You missed a lot. The National Council of Metal Industries won't put itself again through the ordeal of having me for guest of honor.
Not if they can help it."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. Just a lot of speeches."
"Was it an ordeal for you?"
"No . . . Yes, in a way . . . I had really wanted to enjoy it."
"Shall I get you a drink?"
"Yes, will you?"
She turned to go. He stopped her, grasping her shoulders from behind; he bent her head back and kissed her mouth. When he raised his head, she pulled it down again with a demanding gesture of ownership, as if stressing her right to do it. Then she stepped away from him.
"Never mind the drink," he said, "I didn't really want it-except for seeing you wait on me."
"Well, then, let me wait on you."
"No."
He smiled, stretching himself out on the couch, his hands crossed under his head. He felt at home; it was the first home he had ever found.
"You know, the worst part of the banquet was that the only wish of every person present was to get it over with," he said. "What I can't understand is why they wanted to do it at all. They didn't have to. Certainly not for my sake."
She picked up a cigarette box, extended it to him, then held the flame of a lighter to the tip of his cigarette, in the deliberate manner of waiting on him. She smiled in answer to his chuckle, then sat down on the arm of a chair across the room.
"Why did you accept their invitation, Hank?" she asked. "You've always refused to join them."
"I didn't want to refuse a peace offer-when I've beaten them and they know it. I'll never join them, but an invitation to appear as a guest of honor-well, I thought they were good losers. I thought it was generous of them."
"Of them?"
"Are you going to say: of me?"
"Hank! After all the things they've done to stop you-"
"I won, didn't I? So I thought . . . You know, I didn't hold it against them that they couldn't see the value of the Metal sooner-so long as they saw it at last. Every man learns in his own way and time.
Sure, I knew there was a lot of cowardice there, and envy and hypocrisy, but I thought that that was only the surface-now, when I've proved my case, when I've proved it so loudly!-I thought their real motive for inviting me was their appreciation of the Metal, and-"
She smiled in the brief space of his pause; she knew the sentence he had stopped himself from uttering: " and for that, I would forgive anyone anything."
"But it wasn't," he said. "And I couldn't figure out what their motive was. Dagny, I don't think they had any motive at all. They didn't give that banquet to please me, or to gain something from me, or to save face with the public. There was no purpose of any kind about it, no meaning. They didn't really care when they denounced the Metal-and they don't care now. They're not really afraid that I'll drive them all off the market-they don't care enough even about that. Do you know what that banquet was like? It's as if they'd heard that there are values one is supposed to honor and this is what one does to honor them-so they went through the motions, like ghosts pulled by some sort of distant echoes from a better age. I . . . I couldn't stand it."
She said, her face tight, "And you don't think you're generous!"
He glanced up at her; his eyes brightened to a look of amusement.
"Why do they make you so angry?"
She said, her voice