Atlas Shrugged

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 He said it with impersonal deference. But he looked as if he had found the answer to some special
question in his mind and was not astonished any longer.
"Then you know that my interest is not idle," she said. "I'm in a position to give him the chance he needs
and I'm prepared to pay anything he asks."
"May I ask what has aroused your interest in him?"
"His motor."
"How did you happen to know about his motor?"
"I found a broken remnant of it in the ruins of the Twentieth Century factory. Not enough to reconstruct
it or to learn how it worked, But enough to know that it did work and that it's an invention which can
save my railroad, the country and the economy of the whole world.
Don't ask me to tell you now what trail I've followed, trying to trace that motor and to find its inventor.
That's not of any importance, even my life and work are not of any importance to me right now, nothing
is of any importance, except that I must find him. Don't ask me how I happened to come to you. You're
the end of the trail. Tell me his name."
He had listened without moving, looking straight at her; the attentiveness of his eyes seemed to take hold
of every word and store it carefully away, giving her no clue to his purpose. He did not move for a long
time. Then he said, "Give it up, Miss Taggart. You won't find him."
"What is his name?"
"I can tell you nothing about him."
"Is he still alive?"
"I can tell you nothing."
"What is your name?"
"Hugh Akston."
Through the blank seconds of recapturing her mind, she kept telling herself: You're hysterical . . . don't
be preposterous . . . it's just a coincidence of names—while she knew, in certainty and numb,
inexplicable terror, that this was the Hugh Akston.
"Hugh Akston?" she stammered. "The philosopher? . . . The last of the advocates of reason?"
"Why, yes," he answered pleasantly. "Or the first of their return."
He did not seem startled by her shock, but he seemed to find it unnecessary. His manner was simple,
almost friendly, as if he felt no need to hide his identity and no resentment at its being discovered.
"I didn't think that any young person would recognize my name or attach any significance to it,
nowadays," he said.