Atlas Shrugged

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

---

 "I've spent a lot of money on the most ostentatiously vulgar parties I could think of, and a miserable
amount of time on being seen with the appropriate sort of women. As for the rest—" He stopped, then
said, "I have some friends who know this, but you are the first person to whom I am confiding it against
my own rules: I have never slept with any of those women. I have never touched one of them."
"What is more incredible than that, is that I believe you."
The lamp on the floor beside him threw broken bits of light across Francisco's face, as he leaned
forward; the face had a look of guiltless amusement. "If you care to glance over those front pages, you'll
see that I've never said anything. It was the women who were eager to rush into print with stories
insinuating that being seen with me at a restaurant was the sign of a great romance. What do you suppose
those women are after but the same thing as the chaser—the desire to gain their own value from the
number and fame of the men they conquer? Only it's one step phonier, because the value they seek is not
even in the actual fact, but in the impression on and the envy of other women. Well, I gave those bitches
what they wanted—but what they literally wanted, without the pretense that they expected, the pretense
that hides from Them the nature of their wish. Do you think they wanted to sleep with me or with any
man? They wouldn't be capable of so real and honest a desire. They wanted food for their vanity—and I
gave it to them. I gave them the chance to boast to their friends and to see themselves in the scandal
sheets in the roles of great seductresses. But do you know that it works in exactly the same way as what
you did at your trial? If you want to defeat any kind of vicious fraud—comply with it literally, adding
nothing of your own to disguise its nature. Those women understood. They saw whether there's any
satisfaction in being envied by others for a feat one has not achieved. Instead of self-esteem, their
publicized romances with me have given them a deeper sense of inferiority: each one of them knows that
she's tried and failed. If dragging me into bed is supposed to be her public standard of value, she knows
that she couldn't live up to it. I think those women hate me more than any other man on. earth. But my
secret is safe—because each one of them thinks that she was the only one who failed, while all the others
succeeded, so she'll be the more vehement in swearing to our romance and will never admit the truth to
anybody."
"But what have you done to your own reputation?"
Francisco shrugged. "Those whom I respect, will know the truth about me, sooner or later. The
others"—his face hardened—"the others consider that which I really am as evil. Let them have what they
prefer—what I appear to be on the front pages."
"But what for? Why did you do it? Just to teach them a lesson?"
"Hell, no! I wanted to be known as a playboy."
"Why?"
"A playboy is a man who just can't help letting money run through his fingers.”
"Why did you want to assume such an ugly sort of role?"
"Camouflage."
"For what?"
"For a purpose of my own."