process of development. The drain on Taggart Transcontinental had not stopped.
Now she sat at the desk in her office, as she had sat for many evenings, trying to work out the problem of what branches could save the system and in how many years.
The Rio Norte Line, when rebuilt, would redeem the rest. As she looked at the sheets of figures announcing losses and more losses, she did not think of the long, senseless agony of the Mexican venture. She thought of a telephone call. "Hank, can you save us? Can you give us rail on the shortest notice and the longest credit possible?" A quiet, steady voice had answered, "Sure."
The thought was a point of support. She leaned over the sheets of paper on her desk, finding it suddenly easier to concentrate. There was one thing, at least, that could be counted upon not to crumble when needed.
James Taggart crossed the anteroom of Dagny's office, still holding the kind of confidence he had felt among his companions at the barroom half an hour ago. When he opened her door, the confidence vanished. He crossed the room to her desk like a child being dragged to punishment, storing the resentment for all his future years.
He saw a head bent over sheets of paper, the light of the desk lamp glistening on strands of disheveled hair, a white shirt clinging to her shoulders, its loose folds suggesting the thinness of her body.
"What is it, Jim?"
"What are you trying to pull on the San Sebastian Line?"
She raised her head. "Pull? Why?"
"What sort of schedule are we running down there and what kind of trains?"
She laughed; the sound was gay and a little weary. "You really ought to read the reports sent to the president's office, Jim, once in a while."
"What do you mean?"
"We've been running that schedule and those trains on the San Sebastian for the last three months."
"One passenger train a day?"
" - in the morning. And one freight train every other night."
"Good God! On an important branch like that?"
"The important branch can't pay even for those two trams."
"But the Mexican people expect real service from us!"
"I'm sure they do."
"They need trains!"
"For what?"
"For . . . To help them develop local industries. How do you expect them to develop if we don't give them transportation?"
"I don't expect them to develop,"
"That's just your personal opinion. I don't see what right you had to take it upon yourself to cut our schedules. Why, the copper traffic alone will pay for everything."
"When?"
He looked at her; his face assumed the satisfaction of a person about to utter something that has the power to hurt. "You don't doubt the success of those copper mines, do you? - when it's Francisco d'Anconia who's running them?" He stressed the name, watching her.
She said, "He may be your friend, but - "
"My friend? I thought he was yours."
She said steadily, "Not for the last ten years."
"That's too bad, isn't it? Still, he's one of the smartest operators on earth. He's never failed in a venture - I mean, a business venture - and he's sunk millions of his own money into those mines, so we can rely on his judgment."
"When will you realize that Francisco d'Anconia has turned into a worthless bum?"
He chuckled. "I always thought that that's what he was - as far as his personal character is concerned. But you didn't share my opinion. Yours was opposite. Oh my, how opposite! Surely you remember our quarrels on the subject? Shall I quote some of the things you said about him? I can only surmise as to some of the things you did."
"Do you wish to discuss Francisco d'Anconia? Is that what you came here for?"
His face showed the anger of failure - because hers showed nothing.
"You know damn well what I came here for!" he snapped. "I've heard some incredible things about our trains in Mexico."
"What things?"
"What sort of rolling stock are you using down there?"
"The worst I could find."
"You admit that?"
"I've stated it on paper in the reports I sent you."
"Is it true that you're using wood-burning locomotives?"
"Eddie found them for me in somebody's abandoned roundhouse down in Louisiana. He couldn't even learn the name of the railroad."
"And that's what you're running as Taggart trains?"
"Yes."
"What in hell's the big idea? What's going on? I want to know what's going on!"
She spoke evenly, looking straight at him. "If you want to know, I have left nothing but junk on the San Sebastian Line, and as little of that as possible. I have moved everything that could be moved - switch engines, shop tools, even typewriters and mirrors - out of Mexico."
"Why in blazes?"
"So that the looters won't have too much to loot when they nationalize the line."
He leaped to his feet. "You won't get away with that! This is one time you won't get away with it! To have the nerve to pull such a low, unspeakable . . . just because of some vicious rumors, when we have a contract for two hundred years and . . ."
"Jim," she said slowly, "there's not a car, engine or ton of coal that we can spare anywhere on the system."
"I won't permit it, I absolutely won't permit such an outrageous policy toward a friendly people who need our help. Material greed isn't everything. After all, there are non-material considerations, even though you wouldn't understand them!"
She pulled a pad forward and picked up a pencil. "All right, Jim.
How many trains do you wish me to run on the San Sebastian Line?"
"Huh?"
"Which runs do you wish me to cut and on which of our lines - in order to get the Diesels and the steel coaches?"
"I don't want you to cut any runs!"
"Then where do I get the equipment for Mexico?"
"That's for you to figure out. It's your job."
"I am not able to do it. You will have to decide."
"That's your usual rotten trick - switching the responsibility to me!"
"I'm waiting for orders, Jim."
"I'm not going to let you trap me like that!"
She dropped the pencil. "Then the San Sebastian schedule will remain as it is."
"Just wait till the Board meeting next month. I'll demand a decision, Once and for all, on how far the Operating Department is to be permitted to exceed its authority. You're going to have to answer for this."
"Ill answer for it."
She was back at her work before the door had closed on James Taggart.
When she finished, pushed the papers aside and glanced up, the sky was black beyond the window, and the city had become a glowing spread of lighted glass without masonry. She rose reluctantly. She resented the small defeat of being tired, but she knew that she was, tonight.
The outer office was dark and empty; her staff had gone. Only Eddie Willers was still there, at his desk in his glass-partitioned enclosure that looked like a cube of light in a comer of the large room. She waved to him on her way out.
She did not take the elevator to the lobby of the building, but to the concourse of the Taggart Terminal. She liked to walk through it on her way home.
She had always felt that the concourse looked like a temple. Glancing up at the distant ceiling, she saw dim vaults supported by giant granite columns, and the tops of vast windows glazed by darkness. The vaulting held the solemn peace of a cathedral, spread in protection high above the rushing activity of men.
Dominating the concourse, but ignored by the travelers as a habitual sight, stood a statue of Nathaniel Taggart, the founder of the railroad.
Dagny was the only one who remained aware of it and had never been able to take it for granted. To look at that statue whenever she crossed the concourse, was the only form of prayer she knew.
Nathaniel Taggart had been a penniless adventurer who had come from somewhere in New England and built a railroad across a continent, in the days of the first steel rails. His railroad still stood; his battle to build it had dissolved into a legend, because people preferred not to Understand it or to believe it possible.
He was a man who had never accepted the creed that others had the right to stop him. He set his goal and moved toward it, his way as straight as one of his rails. He never sought any loans, bonds, subsidies,