Atlas Shrugged

"Why didn't you stay at the Gonzales reception?" she asked, her casual smile failing to hide the tone of irritation. "I dropped in on them after dinner, just to catch hold of you—but they said you hadn't been feeling well and had gone home."

He crossed the room and picked up a cigarette, for the pleasure of padding in his stocking feet past the formal elegance of her costume.

"I was bored," he answered.

"I can't stand them," she said, with a little shudder; he glanced at her in astonishment: the words sounded involuntary and sincere. "I can't stand Senor Gonzales and that whore he's got himself for a wife.

It's disgusting that they've become so fashionable, they and their parties. I don't feel like going anywhere any longer. It's not the same style any more, not the same spirit. I haven't run into Balph Eubank for months, or Dr. Pritchett, or any of the boys. And all those new faces that look like butcher's assistants! After all, our crowd were gentlemen."

"Yeah," he said reflectively. "Yeah, there's some funny kind of difference. It's like on the railroad, too: I could get along with Gem Weatherby, he was civilized, but Cuffy Meigs—that's something else again, that's . . ."He stopped abruptly.

"It's perfectly preposterous," she said, in the tone of a challenge to the space at large. "They can't get away with it."

She did not explain "who" or "with what." He knew what she meant. Through a moment of silence, they looked as if they were clinging to each other for reassurance.

In the next moment, he was thinking with pleasurable amusement that Lillian was beginning to show her age. The deep burgundy color of her gown was unbecoming, it seemed to draw a purplish tinge out of her skin, a tinge that gathered, like twilight, in the small gullies of her face, softening her flesh to a texture of tired slackness, changing her look of bright mockery into a look of stale malice.

He saw her studying him, smiling and saying crisply, with the smile as license for insult, "You are unwell, aren't you, Jim? You look like a disorganized stable boy."

He chuckled. "I can afford it."

"I know it, darling. You're one of the most powerful men in New York City." She added, "It's a good joke on New York City."

"It is."

"I concede that you're in a position to do anything. That's why I had to see you." She added a small, grunt like sound of amusement, to dilute her statement's frankness.

"Good," he said, his voice comfortable and noncommittal.

"I had to come here, because I thought it best, in this particular matter, not to be seen together in public."

"That is always wise."

"I seem to remember having been useful to you in the past."

"In the past—yes."

"I am sure that I can count on you."

"Of course—only isn't that an old-fashioned, unphilosophical remark? How can we ever be sure of anything?"

"Jim," she snapped suddenly, "you've got to help me!"

"My dear, I'm at your disposal, I'd do anything to help you," he answered, the rules of their language requiring that any open statement be answered by a blatant lie. Lillian was slipping, he thought—and he experienced the pleasure of dealing with an inadequate adversary.

She was neglecting, he noted, even the perfection of her particular trademark: her grooming. A few strands were escaping from the drilled waves of her hair—her nails, matching her gown, were the deep shade of coagulated blood, which made it easy to notice the chipped polish at their tips—and against the broad, smooth, creamy expanse of her skin in the low, square cut of her gown, he observed the tiny glitter of a safety pin holding the strap of her slip.

"You've got to prevent it!" she said, in the belligerent tone of a plea disguised as a command. "You've got to stop it!"

"Really? What?"

"My divorce."

"Oh . . . !" His features dropped into sudden earnestness.

"You know that he's going to divorce me, don't you?"

"I've heard some rumors about it."

"It's set for next month. And when I say set, that's just what I mean.

Oh, it's cost him plenty—but he's bought the judge, the clerks, the bailiffs, their backers, their backers1 backers, a few legislators, half a dozen administrators—he's bought the whole legal process, like a private thoroughfare, and there's no single crossroad left for me to squeeze through to stop it!"

"I see."

"You know, of course, what made him start divorce proceedings?"

"I can guess."

"And I did it as a favor to you!" Her voice was growing anxiously shrill. "I told you about your sister in order to let you get that Gift Certificate for your friends, which—"

"I swear I don't know who let it out!" he cried hastily. "Only a very few at the top knew that you'd been our informer, and I'm sure nobody would dare mention—"

"Oh, I'm sure nobody did. He'd have the brains to guess it, wouldn't he?"

"Yes, I suppose so. Well, then you knew that you were taking a chance."

"I didn't think he'd go that far. I didn't think he'd ever divorce me.

I didn't—"

He chuckled suddenly, with a glance of astonishing perceptiveness.