Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [102]
“Pretty good?” Mort Liddy was smiling at his friends, boastfully and nervously. “Pretty good, eh? Best movie score of the year. Got me a prize. Got me a long-term contract. Yeah, this was my score for Heaven’s in Your Backyard.”
Dagny stood, staring at the room, as if one sense could replace another, as if sight could wipe out sound. She moved her head in a slow circle, trying to find an anchor somewhere. She saw Francisco leaning against a column, his arms crossed; he was looking straight at her; he was laughing.
Don’t shake like this, she thought. Get out of here. This was the approach of an anger she could not control. She thought: Say nothing. Walk steadily. Get out.
She had started walking, cautiously, very slowly. She heard Lillian’s words and stopped. Lillian had said it many times this evening, in answer to the same question, but it was the first time that Dagny heard it.
“This?” Lillian was saying, extending her arm with the metal bracelet for the inspection of two smartly groomed women. “Why, no, it’s not from a hardware store, it’s a very special gift from my husband. Oh, yes, of course it’s hideous. But don’t you see? It’s supposed to be priceless. Of course, I’d exchange it for a common diamond bracelet any time, but somehow nobody will offer me one for it, even though it is so very, very valuable. Why? My dear, it’s the first thing ever made of Rearden Metal.”
Dagny did not see the room. She did not hear the music. She felt the pressure of dead stillness against her eardrums. She did not know the moment that preceded, or the moments that were to follow. She did not know those involved, neither herself, nor Lillian, nor Rearden, nor the meaning of her own action. It was a single instant, blasted out of context. She had heard. She was looking at the bracelet of green-blue metal.
She felt the movement of something being torn off her wrist, and she heard her own voice saying in the great stillness, very calmly, a voice cold as a skeleton, naked of emotion, “If you are not the coward that I think you are, you will exchange it.”
On the palm of her hand, she was extending her diamond bracelet to Lillian.
“You’re not serious, Miss Taggart?” said a woman’s voice.
It was not Lillian’s voice. Lillian’s eyes were looking straight at her. She saw them. Lillian knew that she was serious.
“Give me that bracelet,” said Dagny, lifting her palm higher, the diamond band glittering across it.
“This is horrible!” cried some woman. It was strange that the cry stood out so sharply. Then Dagny realized that there were people standing around them and that they all stood in silence. She was hearing sounds now, even the music; it was Halley’s mangled Concerto, somewhere far away.
She saw Rearden’s face. It looked as if something within him were mangled, like the music; she did not know by what. He was watching them.
Lillian’s mouth moved into an upturned crescent. It resembled a smile. She snapped the metal bracelet open, dropped it on Dagny’s palm and took the diamond band.
“Thank you, Miss Taggart,” she said.
Dagny’s fingers closed about the metal. She felt that; she felt nothing else.
Lillian turned, because Rearden had approached her. He took the diamond bracelet from her hand. He clasped it on her wrist, raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
He did not look at Dagny.
Lillian laughed, gaily, easily, attractively, bringing the room back to its normal mood.
“You may have it back, Miss Taggart, when you change your mind,” she said.
Dagny had turned away. She felt calm and free. The pressure was gone. The need to get out had vanished.
She clasped the metal bracelet on her wrist. She liked the feel of its weight against her skin. Inexplicably, she felt a touch of feminine vanity, the kind she had never experienced