Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand [342]
Her glance darted hopefully to every flashy young female stepping off the train. It was hard to watch: within an instant after the first few figures, the train had seemed to burst at the seams, flooding the platform with a solid current that swept in one direction, as if pulled by a vacuum; she could barely distinguish separate persons. The lights were more glare than illumination, picking this one strip out of a dusty, oily darkness. She needed an effort to stand still against the invisible pressure of motion.
Her first sight of Rearden in the crowd came as a shock: she had not seen him step out of a car, but there he was, walking in her direction from somewhere far down the length of the train. He was alone. He was walking with his usual purposeful speed, his hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat. There was no woman beside him, no companion of any kind, except a porter hurrying along with a bag she recognized as his.
In a fury of incredulous disappointment, she looked frantically for any single feminine figure he could have left behind. She felt certain that she would recognize his choice. She saw none that could be possible. And then she saw that the last car of the train was a private car, and that the figure standing at its door, talking to some station official—a figure wearing, not minks and veils, but a rough sports coat that stressed the incomparable grace of a slender body in the confident posture of this station’s owner and center—was Dagny Taggart. Then Lillian Rearden understood.
“Lillian! What’s the matter?”
She heard Rearden’s voice, she felt his hand grasping her arm, she saw him looking at her as one looks at the object of a sudden emergency. He was looking at a blank face and an unfocused glance of .terror.
“What happened? What are you doing here?”
“I ... Hello, Henry ... I just came to meet you ... No special reason ... I just wanted to meet you.” The terror was gone from her face, but she spoke in a strange, flat voice. “I wanted to see you, it was an impulse, a sudden impulse and I couldn’t resist it, because—”
“But you look ... looked ill.”
“No ... No, maybe I felt faint, it’s stuffy here.... I couldn’t resist coming, because it made me think of the days when you would have been glad to see me ... it was a moment’s illusion to re-create for myself....” The words sounded like a memorized lesson.
She knew that she had to speak, while her mind was fighting to grasp the full meaning of her discovery. The words were part of the plan she had intended to use, if she had met him after he had found the roses in his compartment.
He did not answer, he stood watching her, frowning.
“I missed you, Henry. I know what I am confessing. But I don’t expect it to mean anything to you any longer.” The words did not fit the tight face, the lips that moved with effort, the eyes that kept glancing away from him down the length of the platform. “I wanted ... I merely wanted to surprise you.” A look of shrewdness and purpose was returning to her face.
He took her arm, but she drew back, a little too sharply.
“Aren’t you going to say a word to me, Henry?”
“What do you wish me to say?”
“Do you hate it as much as that—having your wife come to meet you at the station?” She glanced down the platform: Dagny Taggart was walking toward them; he did not see her.
“Let’s go,” he said.
She would not move. “Do you?” she asked.
“What?”
“Do you hate it?”
“No, I don’t hate it. I merely don’t understand it.”
“Tell me about your trip. I’m sure you’ve had a very enjoyable trip.”
“Come on. We can talk at home.”
“When do I ever have a chance to talk to you at home?” She was drawling her words impassively, as if she were stretching them to fill time, for some reason which he could not imagine. “I had hoped to catch a few moments of your attention—like this—between trains and business appointments and all those important matters that hold you day and night, all those great achievements of yours, such as ... Hello, Miss Taggart!” she said sharply, her voice loud and bright.