Atlas Shrugged [500]
She became suddenly conscious of her posture: she had let her shoulder blades slide down against the chair, carelessly, half-lying, one leg stretched forward-and with her sternly tailored, transparent blouse, her wide peasant skirt hand-printed in violent colors, her thin stocking and high-heeled pump, she did not look like a railroad executive-the consciousness of it struck her in answer to his eyes that seemed to be seeing the unattainable-she looked like that which she was: his servant girl. She knew the moment when some faintest stress of the brilliance in his dark green eyes removed the veil of distance, replacing the vision of the past by the act of seeing her immediate person.
She met his eyes with that insolent glance which is a smile without movement of facial muscles.
He turned away, but as he moved across the room his steps were as eloquent as the sound of a voice. She knew that he wanted to leave the room, as he always left it, he had never stayed for longer than a brief good night when he came home. She watched the course of his struggle, whether by means of his steps, begun in one direction and swerving in another, or by means of her certainty that her body had become an instrument for the direct perception of his, like a screen reflecting both movements and motives-she could not tell. She knew only that he who had never started or lost a battle against himself, now had no power to leave this room.
His manner seemed to show no sign of strain. He took off his coat, throwing it aside, remaining in shirt sleeves, and sat down, facing her, at the window across the room. But he sat down on the arm of a chair, as if he were neither leaving nor staying.
She felt the light-headed, the easy, the almost frivolous sensation of triumph in the knowledge that she was holding him as surely as by a physical touch; for the length of a moment, brief and dangerous to endure, it was a more satisfying form of contact.
Then she felt a sudden, blinding shock, which was half-blow, half scream within her, and she groped, stunned, for its cause-only to realize that he had leaned a little to one side and it had been no more than the sight of an accidental posture, of the long line running from his shoulder to the angle of his waist, to his hips, down his legs. She looked away, not to let him see that she was trembling-and she dropped all thoughts of triumph and of whose was the power.
"I've seen you many times since," he said, quietly, steadily, but a little more slowly than usual, as if he could control everything except his need to speak.
"Where have you seen me?"
"Many places."
"But you made certain to remain unseen?" She knew that his was a face she could not have failed to notice.
"Yes."
"Why? Were you afraid?"
"Yes."
He said it simply, and it took her a moment to realize that he was admitting he knew what the sight of his person would have meant to her. "Did you know who I was, when you saw me for the first time?"
"Oh yes. My worst enemy but one."
"What?" She had not expected it; she added, more quietly, "Who's the worst one?"
"Dr. Robert Stadler."
"Did you have me classified with him?"
"No. He's my conscious enemy. He's the man who sold his soul. We don't intend to reclaim him. You-you were one of us. I knew it, long before I saw you. I knew also that you would be the last to join us and the hardest one to defeat."
"Who told you that?"
"Francisco."
She let a moment pass, then asked, "What did he say?"
"He said that of all the names on our list, you'd be the one most difficult to win. That was when I heard of you for the first time. It was Francisco who put your name on our list. He told me that you were the sole hope and future of Taggart Transcontinental, that you'd stand against us for a long time, that you'd fight a desperate battle for your railroad-because you had too much endurance, courage and consecration to your work." He glanced at her. "He told me nothing else.
He spoke of you as if he were merely discussing one of our future strikers. I knew that you and he had been childhood friends, that was