Atlas Shrugged [573]
The doorbell rang.
When she opened the door, she saw the silhouette of a girl with a faintly familiar face-and it took her a moment of startled astonishment to realize that it was Cherryl Taggart. Except for a formal exchange of greetings on a few chance encounters in the halls of the Taggart Building, they had not seen each other since the wedding.
Cherryl's face was composed and unsmiling. "Would you permit me to speak to you"-she hesitated and ended on-"Miss Taggart?"
"Of course," said Dagny gravely. "Come in."
She sensed some desperate emergency in the unnatural calm of Cherryl's manner; she became certain of it when she looked at the girl's face in the light of the living room. "Sit down," she said, but Cherryl remained standing.
"I came to pay a debt," said Cherryl, her voice solemn with the effort to permit herself no sound of emotion. "I want to apologize for the things I said to you at my wedding. There's no reason why you should forgive me, but it's my place to tell you that I know I was insulting everything I admire and defending everything I despise. I know that admitting it now, doesn't make up for it, and even coming here is only another presumption, there's no reason why you should want to hear it, so I can't even cancel the debt, I can only ask for a favor-
that you let me say the things I want to say to you."
Dagny's shock of emotion, incredulous, warm and painful, was the wordless equivalent of the sentence: What a distance to travel in less than a year . . . ! She answered, the unsmiling earnestness of her voice like a hand extended in support, knowing that a smile would upset some precarious balance, "But it does make up for it, and I do want to hear it."
"I know that it was you who ran Taggart Transcontinental. It was you who built the John Galt Line. It was you who had the mind and the courage that kept all of it alive. I suppose you thought that I married Jim for his money-as what shop girl wouldn't have? But, you see, I married Jim because I . . . I thought that he was you. I thought that he was Taggart Transcontinental. Now I know that he's"-
she hesitated, then went on firmly, as if not to spare herself anything-
"he's some sort of vicious moocher, though I can't understand of what kind or why. When I spoke to you at my wedding, I thought that I was defending greatness and attacking its enemy . . . but it was in reverse . . . it was in such horrible, unbelievable reverse! . . . So I wanted to tell you that I know the truth . . . not so much for your sake, I have no right to presume that you'd care, but . . . but for the sake of the things I loved."
Dagny said slowly, "Of course I forgive it."
"Thank you," she whispered, and turned to go.
"Sit down."
She shook her head. "That . . . that was all, Miss Taggart."
Dagny allowed herself the first touch of a smile, no more than in the look of her eyes, as she said, "Cherryl, my name is Dagny."
Cherryl's answer was no more than a faint, tremulous crease of her mouth, as if, together, they had completed a single smile. "I . . .
I didn't know whether I should-"
"We're sisters, aren't we?"
"No! Not through Jim!" It was an involuntary cry.
"No, through our own choice. Sit down, Cherryl." The girl obeyed, struggling not to show the eagerness of her acceptance, not to grasp for support, not to break. "You've had a terrible time, haven't you?"
"Yes . . . but that doesn't matter . . . that's my own problem . . . and my own fault."
"I don't think it was your own fault."
Cherryl did not answer, then said suddenly, desperately, "Look . . .
what I don't want is charity."
"Jim must have told you-and it's true-that I never engage in charity."
"Yes, he did . . . But what I mean is-"
"I know what you mean."
"But there's no reason why you should have to feel concern for me . . . I didn't come here to complain and . . . and load another burden on your shoulders . . . That I happen to suffer, doesn't give me a claim on you."
"No, it doesn't. But that you value all the things I value, does."
"You mean . . . if you want to talk to me, it's