Part 1, Chapter 7, Section 2

It is January 29^th (p 174 s 172) at seven a.m. when Dagny awakens at her desk; working through the day, Dagny abruptly departs to “rush home and dress, because she had promised Jim to speak at the dinner of the New York Business Council” to present a good case in support of Rearden (p 172 s 172). She and James are stuck in traffic en route to the dinner when James begins to mention the attacks against Rearden Metal from the National Council of Metal Industries: Rearden Metal is “unsound”, “brittle” and “will crack suddenly, without warning” (p 173 s 172). James asks Dagny’s opinion as though “begging for an answer.” She states she has not changed her mind. James lists the credentials of the National Council of Metal Industries experts “as if he were begging her to make him doubt these men and their verdict.”

Dagny reminds James that Orren Boyle is the president of the National Council of Metal Industries, prompting James’ jaw to snap open — “‘If that fat slob thinks he can–’ he started, but stopped and did not finish.” James continues listing various entities that released proclamations against Rearden Metal, although James looks “strangely dejected. She could not understand it: he did not gloat, he did not use the opinions of his favorite authorities against her, he seemed to be pleading for reassurance.” (p 174 s 172) After a long silence, James’ tone reduces to “plain emotion” — the “uncomplicated sound of animal fear.” He asks, “Are we going to have that line built . . . on time?” Dagny responds only, “God help this city, if we don’t!”

James shouts out, “Dan Conway is a bastard! … He refused to sell us the Colorado track of the Phoenix-Durango.” (p 174 s 172) Dagny struggles to keep her “voice flat in order not to scream” when she asks, “You didn’t expect him . . . to sell it . . . to you?” James’ hysterically belligerent manner returns when he cries out that he offered more than anybody else but “the son of a bitch refused. He’s actually declared that not a foot of rail would be sold to Taggart Transcontinental. … He’s selling it piecemeal to any stray comer, to one-horse railroads in Arkansas or North Dakota, selling it at a loss … I think it’s contrary to the intent of the Anti-dog-eat-dog Rule … to protect the essential systems, not the jerkwaters of North Dakota.” (p 175 s 172)

Dagny keeps “her head bowed. She could not bear to look at him.” (p 175 s 172) She realizes the reason James Taggart wants Dagny to defend Rearden Metal is because James’ plan for”wonderful publicity” fell through to use the Phoenix-Durango track and theatrically forfeit Rearden Metal in “deference to public opinion.”

James declares that Dagny “better do a good job of defending Rearden Metal, because Bertram Scudder can get pretty sarcastic. … He’s going to be one of the speakers tonight.” (p 175 s 172) “You didn’t tell me there were to be other speakers. … The New York Business Council and you invite Bertram Scudder?” “Why not? Don’t you think he’s smart? He doesn’t have any hard feelings toward businessmen, not really. … You’ll be able to beat him, won’t you?” “. . . to beat him?” “on he air. It’s going to be a radio broadcast. You’re going to debate with him the question: ‘Is Rearden Metal a lethal product of greed?’” Dagny orders the driver to stop the car and is leaving, impervious to James’ hollers, until he seizes her and screams, “But why?” “You goddamn fool, do you think I consider their question debatable?”

Dagny is running through the streets until “the blinding anger was gone; she felt nothing but a gray weariness” (p 176 s 172). She is in a seedy neighborhood with the “fog of the East River two blocks away” — in the shadow of a “naked steel skeleton” of a ruined office building is a small diner whose “windows were a bright band of glass and light. She went in.” Running the place is a “husky, elderly man” whose stolid indifference has a “mercifulness that asks no questions.” Dagny orders a cup of coffee, and finds “enjoyment in its warmth” until she sees stamped on a toaster: Marsh, Colorado (p 176-177 s 172). It is a reminder of the “guilt of wasting an evening when she could not afford to waste an hour” (p 172 s 172). A bum begins to trail on, interrupted at times by passive words of agreement or dismissiveness by the other derelicts,

A young boy “watching Dagny with a kind of fierece, purposeless intensity” responds with a “half-chuckle, half-sneer: ‘Who is John Galt?’” (p 178 s 172) Dagny is concerned with nothing except the coffee “reviving the arteries of her body” until a “small, shriveled tramp who wore a cap pulled low over his eyes” tell her “I know who is John Galt … It’s a secret, but I know it.” She asks What? without interest. “The greatest explorer that ever lived. The man who found the fountain of youth…