He said simply openly. There was no flattered pleasure in his voice, and no modesty. This, she new, was a tribute to her, the rarest one person could pay another: the tribute of feeling free to acknowledge one’s own greatness, knowing that it is understood.
[…]
She looked at him in the exact moment when he turned to look at her. They stood very close to each other. She saw, in his eyes, that he felt as she did. If joy is the aim and the core of existence, she thought, and if that which has the power to give one joy is always guarded as one’s deepest secret, then they had seen each other naked in that moment.
Ayn Rand, Atlas Strugged
