Atlas Shrugged [52]
"No."
"Then you don't realize what it means?"
"I realize that I'm going to get the rail rolled and you're going to get the track laid in nine months."
She smiled, relaxing, wearily and a little guiltily. "Yes. I know we will. I know it's useless-getting angry at people like Jim and his friends. We haven't any time for it. First, I have to undo what they've done. Then afterwards"-she stopped, wondering, shook her head and shrugged-"afterwards, they won't matter."
"That's right. They won't. When I heard about that Anti-dog-eat-dog business, it made me sick. But don't worry about the goddamn bastards."
The two words sounded shockingly violent, because his face and voice remained calm. "You and I will always be there to save the country from the consequences of their actions." He got up; he said, pacing the office, "Colorado isn't going to be stopped. You'll pull it through. Then Dan Conway will be back, and others. All that lunacy is temporary. >t can't last. It's demented, so it has to defeat itself. You and I will just have to work a little harder for a while, that's all."
She watched his tall figure moving across the office. The office suited him; it contained nothing but the few pieces of furniture he needed, all of them harshly simplified down to their essential purpose, all of them exorbitantly expensive in the quality of materials and the skill of design.
The room looked like a motor-a motor held within the glass case of broad windows. But she noticed one astonishing detail: a vase of jade that stood on top of a filing cabinet. The vase was a solid, dark green stone carved into plain surfaces; the texture of its smooth curves provoked an irresistible desire to touch it. It seemed startling in that office, incongruous with the sternness of the rest: it was a touch of sensuality.
"Colorado is a great place," he said. "It's going to be the greatest in the country. You're not sure that I'm concerned about it? That state's becoming one of my best customers, as you ought to know if you take time to read the reports on your freight traffic."
"I know. I read them."
"I've been thinking of building a plant there in a few years. To save them your transportation charges." He glanced at her. "You'll lose an awful lot of steel freight, if I do."
"Go ahead. I'll be satisfied with carrying your supplies, and the groceries for your workers, and the freight of the factories that will follow you there-and perhaps I won't have time to notice that I've lost your steel. . . . What are you laughing at?"
"It's wonderful."
"What?"
"The way you don't react as everybody else does nowadays."
"Still, I must admit that for the time being you're the most important single shipper of Taggart Transcontinental."
"Don't you suppose I know it?"
"So I can't understand why Jim-" She stopped.
"-tries his best to harm my business? Because your brother Jim is a fool."
"He is. But it's more than that. There's something worse than stupidity about it."
"Don't waste time trying to figure him out. Let him spit. He's no danger to anyone. People like Jim Taggart just clutter up the world."
"I suppose so."
"Incidentally, what would you have done if I'd said I couldn't deliver your rails sooner?"
"I would have torn up sidings or closed some branch line, any branch line, and I would have used the rail to finish the Rio Norte track on time."
He chuckled. "That's why I'm not worried about Taggart Transcontinental. But you won't have to start getting rail out of old sidings. Not so long as I'm in business."
She thought suddenly that she was wrong about his lack of emotion: the hidden undertone of his manner was enjoyment. She realized that she had always felt a sense of light-hearted relaxation in his presence and known that he shared it. He was the only man she knew to whom she could speak without strain or effort. This, she thought, was a mind she respected, an adversary worth matching. Yet there had always been an odd sense of distance between them, the sense of a closed door; there was an impersonal