Atlas Shrugged [303]
"Dagny, there's something I want to tell you about the rail that you ordered. I want you to know this tonight."
She was watching him attentively; the expression of his face pulled hers into the same look of quietly solemn tension.
"I am supposed to deliver to Taggart Transcontinental, on February 'fifteenth, sixty thousand tons of rail, which is to give you three hundred miles of track. You will receive-for the same sum of money-eighty thousand tons of rail, which will give you five hundred miles of track.
You know what material is cheaper and lighter than steel. Your rail will not be steel, it will be Rearden Metal. Don't argue, object or agree.
I am not asking for your consent. You are not supposed to consent or to know anything about it. I am doing this and I alone will be responsible.
We will work it so that those on your staff who'll know that you've ordered steel, won't know that you've received Rearden Metal, and those who'll know that you've received Rearden Metal, won't know that you had no permit to buy it. We will tangle the bookkeeping in such a way that if the thing should ever blow up, nobody will be able to pin anything on anybody, except on me. They might suspect that I bribed someone on your staff, or they might suspect that you were hi on it, but they won't be able to prove it. I want you to give me your word that you will never admit it, no matter what happens. It's my Metal, and if there are any chances to take, it's I who'll take them. I have been planning this from the day I received your order. I have ordered the copper for it, from a source which will not betray me. I did not intend to tell you about it till later, but I changed my mind. I want you to know it tonight-because I am going on trial tomorrow for the same kind of crime."
She had listened without moving. At his last sentence, he saw a faint contraction of her cheeks and lips; it was not quite a smile, but it gave him her whole answer: pain, admiration, understanding.
Then he saw her eyes becoming softer, more painfully, dangerously alive-he took her wrist, as if the tight grasp of his fingers and the severity of his glance were to give her the support she needed-and he said sternly, "Don't thank me-this is not a favor-I am doing it in order to be able to bear my work, or else I'll break like Ken Danagger."
She whispered, "AH right, Hank, I won't thank you," the tone of her voice and the look of her eyes making it a lie by the time it was uttered.
He smiled. "Give me the word I asked."
She inclined her head. "I give you my word." He released her wrist.
She added, not raising her head, "The only thing I'll say is that if they sentence you to jail tomorrow, I'll quit-without waiting for any destroyer to prompt me."
"You won't. And I don't think they'll sentence me to jail. I think they'll let me off very lightly. I have a hypothesis about it-I'll explain it to you afterwards, when I've put it to the test."
"What hypothesis?"
"Who is John Galt?" He smiled, and stood up. "That's all. We won't talk any further about my trial, tonight. You don't happen to have anything to drink in your office, have you?"
"No. But I think my traffic manager has some sort of a bar on one shelf of his filing closet."
"Do you think you could steal a drink for me, if he doesn't have it locked?"
"I'll try."
He stood looking at the portrait of Nat Taggart on the wall of her office-the portrait of a young man with a lifted head-until she returned, bringing a bottle of brandy and two glasses. He filled the glasses in silence.
"You know, Dagny, Thanksgiving was a holiday established by productive people to celebrate the success of their work."
The movement of his arm, as he raised his glass, went from the portrait-to her-to himself- to the buildings of the city beyond the window.
For a