"The choice will be yours, Miss Taggart."
"I can make no choice when I'm dealing with a stranger."
"But you're not Didn't you name a railroad line after me?"
"Oh! . . . Yes . . ." It was the small jolt of another connection falling into place. "Yes, I—" She was looking at the tall figure with the sun-streaked hair, with the suppressed smile in the mercilessly perceptive eyes—she was seeing the struggle to build her Line and the summer day of the first train's run—she was thinking that if a human figure could be fashioned as an emblem of that Line, this was the figure.
"Yes . . . I did . . . " Then, remembering the rest, she added, "But I named it after an enemy."
He smiled. "That's the contradiction you had to resolve sooner or later, Miss Taggart."
"It was you . . . wasn't it? . . . who destroyed my Line. . . ."
"Why, no. It was the contradiction."
She closed her eyes; in a moment, she asked, "All those stories I heard about you—which of them were true?"
"All of them."
"Was it you who spread them?"
"No. What for? I never had any wish to be talked about."
"But you do know that you've become a legend?"
"Yes."
"The young inventor of the Twentieth Century Motor Company is the one real version of the legend, isn't it?"
"The one that's concretely real—yes."
She could not say it indifferently; there was still a breathless tone and the drop of her voice toward a whisper, when she asked, "The motor . . . the motor I found . . . it was you who made it?"
"Yes."
She could not prevent the jolt of eagerness that threw her head up.
"The secret of transforming energy—" she began, and stopped, "I could tell it to you in fifteen minutes," he said, in answer to the desperate plea she had not uttered, "but there's no power on earth that can force me to tell it. If you understand this, you'll understand everything that's baffling you."
"That night . . . twelve years ago . . . a spring night when you walked out of a meeting of six thousand murderers—that story is true, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"You told them that you would stop the motor of the world."
"I have."
"What have you done?"
"I've done nothing, Miss Taggart. And that's the whole of my secret."
She looked at him silently for a long moment. He stood waiting, as if he could read her thoughts. "The destroyer—" she said in a tone of wonder and helplessness.
"—the most evil creature that's ever existed," he said in the tone of a quotation, and she recognized her own words, "the man who's draining the brains of the world."
"How thoroughly have you been watching me," she asked, "and for how long?"
It was only an instant's pause, his eyes did not move, but it seemed to her that his glance was stressed, as if in special awareness of seeing her, and she caught the sound of some particular intensity in his voice as he answered quietly, "For years."
She closed her eyes, relaxing and giving up. She felt an odd, lighthearted indifference, as if she suddenly wanted nothing but the comfort of surrendering to helplessness.
The doctor who arrived was a gray-haired man with a mild, thoughtful face and a firmly, unobtrusively confident manner.
"Miss Taggart, may I present Dr. Hendricks?" said Galt.
"Not Dr, Thomas Hendricks?" she gasped, with the involuntary rudeness of a child; the name belonged to a great surgeon, who had retired and vanished six years ago.
"Yes, of course," said Galt.
Dr. Hendricks smiled at her, in answer. "Midas told me that Miss Taggart has to be treated for shock," he said, "not for the one sustained, but for the ones to come."
"I'll leave you to do it," said Galt, "while I go to the market to get supplies for breakfast."
She watched the rapid efficiency of Dr. Hendricks' work, as he examined her injuries. He had brought an object she had never seen before: a portable X-ray machine. She learned that she had torn the cartilage of two ribs, that she had sprained an ankle, ripped patches of skin off one knee and one elbow, and acquired a few bruises spread in purple blotches over her body. By the time Dr. Hendricks' swift, competent hands had wound the bandages and the tight lacings of tape, she felt as if her body were an engine checked by an expert mechanic, and no further care was necessary, "I would advise you to remain in bed, Miss Taggart."
"Oh no! If I'm careful and move slowly, I'll be all right."
"You ought to rest."
"Do you think I can?"
He smiled. "I guess not."
She was dressed by the time Galt came back. Dr. Hendricks gave him an account of her condition, adding, "I'll be back to check up, tomorrow."
"Thanks," said Galt. "Send the bill to me."
"Certainly not!" she said indignantly. "I will pay it myself."
The two men glanced at each other, in amusement, as at the boast of a beggar.
"We'll discuss that later," said Galt.
Dr. Hendricks left, and she tried to stand up, limping, catching at the furniture for support. Galt lifted her in his arms, carried her to the kitchen alcove and placed her on a chair by the table set for two.
