Atlas Shrugged

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 "Oh yes, Jim, I see!"
He could not interpret the sound of her voice, it was low, it was part-moan, part-chuckle,
part-triumph—but it was the first sound of emotion to come from her, and he plunged on, with no choice
but to hope. "I promised them in Washington that you'd speak! We can't fail them—not in an issue of this
kind! We can't afford to be suspected of disloyalty. It's alt arranged. You'll be the guest speaker on
Bertram Scudder's program, tonight, at ten-thirty. He's got a radio program where he interviews
prominent public figures, it's a national hookup, he has a large following, he reaches over twenty million
people. The office of the Morale Conditioner has—"
"The what?"
"The Morale Conditioner—that's Chick Morrison—has called me three times, to make sure that nothing
would go wrong. They've issued orders to all the news broadcasters, who've been announcing it all day,
all over the country, telling people to listen to you tonight on Bertram Scudder's hour."
He looked at her as if he were demanding both an answer and the recognition that her answer was the
element of least importance in these circumstances. She said, "You know what I think of the Washington
policies and of Directive 10-289."
"At a time like this, we can't afford the luxury of thinking!"
She laughed aloud.
"But don't you see that you can't refuse them now?" he yelled. "If you don't appear after all those
announcements, it will support the rumors, it will amount to an open declaration of disloyalty!"
"The trap won't work, Jim."
"What trap?"
"The one you're always setting up."
"I don't know what you mean!"
"Yes, you do. You knew—all of you knew it—that I would refuse.
So you pushed me into a public trap, where my refusal would become an embarrassing scandal for you,
more embarrassing than you thought I'd dare to cause. You were counting on me to save your faces and
the necks you stuck out. I won't save them."
"But I promised it!"
"I didn't."
"But we can't refuse them! Don't you see that they've got us hogtied?
That they're holding us by the throat? Don't you know what they can do to us through this Railroad Pool,
or through the Unification Board, or through the moratorium on our bonds?"
"I knew that two years ago."