II
“WHY DIDN’T YOU WEAR YOUR EMERALD BRACELET?” ASKED Peter Keating. “Gordon Prescott’s so-called fiancée had everybody gaping at her star sapphire.”
“I’m sorry, Peter. I shall wear it next time,” said Dominique.
“It was a nice party. Did you have a good time?”
“I always have a good time.”
“So did I ... Only ... Oh God, do you want to know the truth?”
“No.”
“Dominique, I was bored to death. Vincent Knowlton is a pain in the neck. He’s such a damn snob. I can’t stand him.” He added, cautiously: “I didn’t show it, did I?”
“No. You behaved very well. You laughed at all his jokes—even when no one else did.”
“Oh, you noticed that? It always works.”
“Yes, I noticed that.”
“You think I shouldn’t, don’t you?”
“I haven’t said that.”
“You think it’s ... low, don’t you?”
“I don’t think anything is low.”
He slumped farther in his armchair; it made his chin press uncomfortably against his chest; but he did not care to move again. A fire crackled in the fireplace of his living room. He had turned out all the lights, save one lamp with a yellow silk shade; but it created no air of intimate relaxation, it only made the place look deserted, like a vacant apartment with the utilities shut off. Dominique sat at the other end of the room, her thin body fitted obediently to the contours of a straight-backed chair; she did not look stiff, only too poised for comfort. They were alone, but she sat like a lady at a public function; like a lovely dress dummy in a public show window—a window facing a busy intersection.
They had come home from a tea party at the house of Vincent Knowlton, a prominent young society man, Keating’s new friend. They had had a quiet dinner together, and now their evening was free. There were no other social engagements till tomorrow.
“You shouldn’t have laughed at theosophy when you spoke to Mrs. Marsh,” he said. “She believes in it.”
“I’m sorry. I shall be more careful.”
He waited to have her open a subject of conversation. She said nothing. He thought suddenly that she had never spoken to him first—in the twenty months of their marriage. He told himself that that was ridiculous and impossible; he tried to recall an occasion when she had addressed him. Of course he had; he remembered her asking him: “What time will you be back tonight?” and “Do you wish to include the Dixons for Tuesday’s dinner?” and many things like that.
He glanced at her. She did not look bored or anxious to ignore him. She sat there, alert and ready, as if his company held her full interest; she did not reach for a book, she did not stare at some distant thought of her own. She looked straight at him, not past him, as if she were waiting for a conversation. He realized that she had always looked straight at him, like this; and now he wondered whether he liked it. Yes, he did, it allowed him no cause to be jealous, not even of her hidden thoughts. No, he didn’t, not quite, it allowed no escape, for either one of them.
“I’ve just finished The Gallant Gallstone,” he said. “It’s a swell book. It’s the product of a scintillating brain, a Puck with tears streaming down his face, a golden-hearted clown holding for a moment the throne of God.”
“I read the same book review. In the Sunday Banner.”
“I read the book itself. You know I did.”
“That was nice of you.”
“Huh?” He heard approval and it pleased him.
“It was considerate toward the author. I’m sure she likes to have people read her book. So it was kind to take the time—when you knew in advance what you’d think of it.”
“I didn’t know. But I happen to agree with the reviewer.”
“The Banner has the best reviewers.”
“That’s true. Of course. So there’s nothing wrong in agreeing with them, is there?”
“Nothing whatever. I always agree.”
“With whom?”
“With everybody.”
“Are you making fun of me, Dominique?”
“Have you given me reason to?”
“No. I don’t see how. No, of course I haven’t.”
“Then I’m not.”
He waited. He heard a truck rumbling past, in the street below, and that filled a few seconds; but when the sound died, he had to speak again:
“Dominique, I’d like to know what you think.”
“Of what?”
“Of ... of ...” He searched for an important subject and ended with: “... of Vincent Knowlton.”
“I think he’s a man worth kissing the backside of.”
“For Christ’s sake, Dominique!”
“I’m sorry. That’s bad English and bad manners. It’s wrong, of course. Well, let’s see: Vincent Knowlton is a man whom it’s pleasant to know. Old families deserve a great deal of consideration, and we must have tolerance for the opinions of others, because tolerance is the greatest virtue, therefore it would be unfair to force your views on Vincent Knowlton, and if you just let him believe what he pleases, he will be glad to help you too, because he’s a very human person.”
“Now, that’s sensible,” said Keating; he felt at home in recognizable language. “I think tolerance is very important, because ...” He stopped. He finished, in an empty voice: “You said exactly the same thing as before.”
“Did you notice that,” she said. She said it without question mark, indifferently, as a simple fact. It was not sarcasm; he wished it were; sarcasm would have granted him a personal recognition—the desire to hurt him. But her voice had never carried any personal relation to him—not for twenty months.
He stared into the fire. That was what made a man happy—to sit looking dreamily into a fire, at his own hearth, in his own home; that’s what he had always heard and read. He stared at the flames, unblinking, to force himself into a complete obedience to an established truth. Just one more minute of it and I will feel happy, he thought, concentrating. Nothing happened.
He thought of how convincingly he could describe this scene to friends and make them envy the fullness of his contentment. Why couldn’t he convince himself? He had everything he’d ever wanted. He had wanted superiority—and for the last year he had been the undisputed leader of his profession. He had wanted fame—and he had five thick albums of clippings. He had wanted wealth—and he had enough to insure luxury for the rest of his life. He had everything anyone ever wanted. How many people struggled and suffered to achieve what he had achieved? How many dreamed and bled and died for this, without reaching it? “Peter Keating is the luckiest fellow on earth.” How often had he heard that?
This last year had been the best of his life. He had added the impossible to his possessions—Dominique Francon. It had been such a joy to laugh casually when friends repeated to him: “Peter, how did you ever do it?” It had been such a pleasure to introduce her to strangers, to say lightly: “My wife,” and to watch the stupid, uncontrolled look of envy in their eyes. Once at a large party an elegant drunk had asked him, with a wink declaring unmistakable intentions: “Say, do you know that gorgeous creature over there?” “Slightly,” Keating had answered, gratified, “she’s my wife.”
He often told himself gratefully that their marriage had turned out much better than he had expected. Dominique had become an ideal wife. She devoted herself completely to his interests: pleasing his clients, entertaining his friends, running his home. She changed nothing in his existence: not his hours, not his favorite menus, not even the arrangement of his furniture. She had brought nothing with her, except her clothes; she had not added a single book or ash tray to his house. When he expressed his views on any subject, she did not argue—she agreed with him. Graciously, as a matter of natural course, she took second place, vanishing in his background.
He had expected a torrent that would lift him and smash him against some unknown rocks. He had not found even a brook joining his peaceful river. It was more as if the river went on and someone came to swim quietly in his wake; no, not even to swim—that was a cutting, forceful action—but just to float behind him with the current. Had he been offered the power to determine Dominique’s attitude after their marriage, he would have asked that she behave exactly as she did.
Only their nights left him miserably unsatisfied. She submitted whenever he wanted her. But it was always as on their first night: an indifferent body in his arms, without revulsion, without answer. As far as he was concerned, she was still a virgin: he had never made her experience anything. Each time, burning with humiliation, he decided never to touch her again. But his desire returned, aroused by the constant presence of her beauty. He surrendered to it, when he could resist no longer; not often.
It was his mother who stated the thing he had not admitted to himself about his marriage. “I can’t stand it,” his mother said, six months after the wedding. “If she’d just get angry at me once, call me names, throw things at me, it would be all right. But I can’t stand this.” “What, Mother?” he asked, feeling a cold hint of panic. “It’s no use, Peter,” she answered. His mother, whose arguments, opinions, reproaches he had never been able to stop, would not say another word about his marriage. She took a small apartment of her own and moved out of his house. She came to visit him often and she was always polite to Dominique, with a strange, beaten air of resignation. He told himself that he should be glad to be free of his mother; but he was not glad.
Yet he could not grasp what Dominique had done to inspire that mounting dread within him. He could find no word or gesture for which to reproach her. But for twenty months it had been like tonight: he could not bear to remain alone with her—yet he did not want to escape her and she did not want to avoid him.
“Nobody’s coming tonight?” he asked tonelessly, turning away from the fire.
“No,” she said, and smiled, the smile serving as connection to her next words: “Shall I leave you alone, Peter?”
“No!” It was almost a cry. I must not sound so desperate, he thought, while he was saying aloud: “Of course not. I’m glad to have an evening with my wife all to myself.”
He felt a dim instinct telling him that he must solve this problem, must learn to make their moments together endurable, that he dare not run from it, for his own sake more than hers.
“What would you like to do tonight, Dominique?”
“Anything you wish.”
“Want to go to a movie?”
“Do you?”
“Oh, I don’t know. It kills time.”
“All right. Let’s kill time.”
“No. Why should we? That sounds awful.”
“Does it?”
“Why should we run from our own home? Let’s stay here.”
“Yes, Peter.”
He waited. But the silence, he thought, is a flight too, a worse kind of flight.
“Want to play a hand of Russian Bank?” he asked.
“Do you like Russian Bank?”
“Oh, it kills ti—” He stopped. She smiled.
“Dominique,” he said, looking at her, “you’re so beautiful. You’re always so ... so utterly beautiful. I always want to tell you how I feel about it.”
“I’d like to hear how you feel about it, Peter.”
“I love to look at you. I always think of what Gordon Prescott said. He said that you are God’s perfect exercise in structural mathematics. And Vincent Knowlton said you’re a spring morning. And Ellsworth—Ellsworth said you’re a reproach to every other female shape on earth.”
“And Ralston Holcombe?” she asked.
“Oh, never mind!” he snapped, and turned back to the fire.
I know why I can’t stand the silence, he thought. It’s because it makes no difference to her at all whether I speak or not; as if I didn’t exist and never had existed ... the thing more inconceivable than one’s death—never to have been born.... He felt a sudden, desperate desire which he could identify—a desire to be real to her.
“Dominique, do you know what I’ve been thinking?” he asked eagerly.
“No. What have you been thinking?”
“I’ve thought of it for some time—all by myself—I haven’t mentioned it to anyone. And nobody suggested it. It’s my own idea.”
“Why, that’s fine. What is it?”
“I think I’d like to move to the country and build a house of our own. Would you like that?”
“I’d like it very much. Just as much as you would. You want to design a home for yourself?”
“Hell, no. Bennett will dash one off for me. He does all our country homes. He’s a whiz at it.”
“Will you like commuting?”
“No, I think that will be quite an awful nuisance. But you know, everybody that’s anybody commutes nowadays. I always feel like a damn proletarian when I have to admit that I live in the city.”
“Will you like to see trees and a garden and the earth around you?”
“Oh, that’s a lot of nonsense. When will I have the time? A tree’s a tree. When you’ve seen a newsreel of the woods in spring, you’ve seen it all.”
“Will you like to do some gardening? People say it’s very nice, working the soil yourself.”
“Good God, no! What kind of grounds do you think we’d have? We can afford a gardener, and a good one—so the place will be something for the neighbors to admire.”
“Will you like to take up some sport?”
“Yes, I’ll like that.”
“Which one?”
“I think I’ll do better with my golf. You know, belonging to a country club right where you’re one of the leading citizens in the community is different from occasional week ends. And the people you meet are different. Much higher class. And the contacts you make ...” He caught himself, and added angrily: “Also, I’ll take up horseback riding.”
“I like horseback riding. Do you?”
“I’ve never had much time for it. Well, it does shake your insides unmercifully. But who the hell is Gordon Prescott to think he’s the only he-man on earth and plaster his photo in riding clothes right in his reception room?”
“I suppose you will want to find some privacy?”
“Well, I don’t believe in that desert-island stuff. I think the house should stand in sight of a major highway, so people would point it out, you know, the Keating estate. Who the hell is Claude Stengel to have a country home while I live in a rented flat? He started out about the same time I did, and look where he is and where I am, why, he’s lucky if two and a half men ever heard of him, so why should he park himself in Westchester and ...”
And he stopped. She sat looking at him, her face serene.
“Oh God damn it!” he cried. “If you don’t want to move to the country, why don’t you just say so?”
“I want very much to do anything you want, Peter. To follow any idea you get all by yourself.”
He remained silent for a long time.
“What do we do tomorrow night?” he asked, before he could stop himself.
She rose, walked to a desk and picked up her calendar.
“We have the Palmers for dinner tomorrow night,” she said.
“Oh, Christ!” he moaned. “They’re such awful bores! Why do we have to have them?”
She stood holding the calendar forward between the tips of her fingers, as if she were a photograph with the focus on the calendar and her own figure blurred in its background.
“We have to have the Palmers,” she said, “so that we can get the commission for their new store building. We have to get that commission so that we can entertain the Eddingtons for dinner on Saturday. The Eddingtons have no commissions to give, but they’re in the Social Register. The Palmers bore you and the Eddingtons snub you. But you have to flatter people whom you despise in order to impress other people who despise you.”
“Why do you have to say things like that?”
“Would you like to look at this calendar, Peter?”
“Well, that’s what everybody does. That’s what everybody lives for.”
“Yes, Peter. Almost everybody.”
“If you don’t approve, why don’t you say so?”
“Have I said anything about not approving?”
He thought back carefully. “No,” he admitted. “No, you haven’t.... But it’s the way you put things.”
“Would you rather I put it in a more involved way—as I did about Vincent Knowlton?”
“I’d rather ...” Then he cried: “I’d rather you’d express an opinion, God damn it, just once!”
She asked, in the same level monotone: “Whose opinion, Peter? Gordon Prescott’s? Ralston Holcombe’s? Ellsworth Toohey’s?”
He turned to her, leaning on the arm of his chair, half rising, suddenly tense. The thing between them was beginning to take shape. He had a first hint of words that would name it.
“Dominique,” he said, softly, reasonably, “that’s it. Now I know. I know what’s been the matter all the time.”
“Has anything been the matter?”
“Wait. This is terribly important. Dominique, you’ve never said, not once, what you thought. Not about anything. You’ve never expressed a desire. Not of any kind.”
“What’s wrong about that?”
“But it’s ... it’s like death. You’re not real. You’re only a body. Look, Dominique, you don’t know it, I’ll try to explain. You understand what death is? When a body can’t move any more, when it has no ... no will, no meaning. You understand? Nothing. The absolute nothing. Well, your body moves—but that’s all. The other, the thing inside you, your—oh, don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking religion, but there’s no other word for it, so I’ll say: your soul—your soul doesn’t exist. No will, no meaning. There’s no real you any more.”
“What’s the real me?” she asked. For the first time, she looked attentive; not compassionate; but, at least, attentive.
“What’s the real anyone?” he said, encouraged. “It’s not just the body. It’s ... it’s the soul.”
“What is the soul?”
“It’s—you. The thing inside you.”
“The thing that thinks and values and makes decisions?”
“Yes! Yes, that’s it. And the thing that feels. You’ve—you’ve given it up.”
“So there are two things that one can’t give up: one’s thoughts and one’s desires?”
“Yes! Oh, you do understand! So you see, you’re like a corpse to everybody around you. A kind of walking death. That’s worse than any active crime. It’s ...”
“Negation?”
“Yes. Just blank negation. You’re not here. You’ve never been here. If you’d tell me that the curtains in this room are ghastly and if you’d rip them off and put up some you like—something of you would be real, here, in this room. But you never have. You’ve never told the cook what dessert you liked for dinner. You’re not here, Dominique. You’re not alive. Where’s your I?”
“Where’s yours, Peter?” she asked quietly.
He sat still, his eyes wide. She knew that his thoughts, in this moment, were clear and immediate like visual perception, that the act of thinking was an act of seeing a procession of years behind him.
“It’s not true,” he said at last, his voice hollow. “It’s not true.”
“What is not true?”
“What you said.”
“I’ve said nothing. I asked you a question.”
His eyes were begging her to speak, to deny. She rose, stood before him, and the taut erectness of her body was a sign of life, the life he had missed and begged for, a positive quality of purpose, but the quality of a judge.
“You’re beginning to see, aren’t you, Peter? Shall I make it clearer? You never wanted me to be real. You never wanted anyone to be. But you didn’t want me to show it. You wanted an act to help your act—a beautiful, complicated act, all twists, trimmings and words. All words. You didn’t like what I said about Vincent Knowlton. You liked it when I said the same thing under cover of virtuous sentiments. You didn’t want me to believe. You only wanted me to convince you that I believed. My real soul, Peter? It’s real only when it’s independent—you’ve discovered that, haven’t you? It’s real only when it chooses curtains and desserts—you’re right about that—curtains, desserts and religions, Peter, and the shapes of buildings. But you’ve never wanted that. You wanted a mirror. People want nothing but mirrors around them. To reflect them while they’re reflecting too. You know, like the senseless infinity you get from two mirrors facing each other across a narrow passage. Usually in the more vulgar kind of hotels. Reflections of reflections and echoes of echoes. No beginning and no end. No center and no purpose. I gave you what you wanted. I became what you are, what your friends are, what most of humanity is so busy being—only without the trimmings. I didn’t go around spouting book reviews to hide my emptiness of judgment—I said I had no judgment. I didn’t borrow designs to hide my creative impotence—I created nothing. I didn’t say that equality is a noble conception and unity the chief goal of mankind—I just agreed with everybody. You call it death, Peter? That kind of death—I’ve imposed it on you and on everyone around us. But you-you haven’t done that. People are comfortable with you, they like you, they enjoy your presence. You’ve spared them the blank death. Because you’ve imposed it—on yourself.”
He said nothing. She walked away from him, and sat down again, waiting.
He got up. He made a few steps toward her. He said: “Dominique ...”
Then he was on his knees before her, clutching her, his head buried against her legs.
“Dominique, it’s not true—that I never loved you. I love you, I always have, it was not ... just to show the others—that was not all—I loved you. There were two people—you and another person, a man, who always made me feel the same thing—not fear exactly, but like a wall, a steep wall to climb—like a command to rise—I don’t know where—but a feeling going up—I’ve always hated that man—but you, I wanted you—always—that’s why I married you—when I knew you despised me—so you should have forgiven me that marriage—you shouldn’t have taken your revenge like this—not like this, Dominique—Dominique, I can’t fight back, I——”
“Who is the man you hated, Peter?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Who is he?”
“Nobody. I ...”
“Name him.”
“Howard Roark.”
She said nothing for a long time. Then she put her hand on his hair. The gesture had the form of gentleness.
“I never wanted to take a revenge on you, Peter,” she said softly.
“Then—why?”
“I married you for my own reasons. I acted as the world demands one should act. Only I can do nothing halfway. Those who can, have a fissure somewhere inside. Most people have many. They lie to themselves—not to know that. I’ve never lied to myself. So I had to do what you all do—only consistently and completely. I’ve probably destroyed you. If I could care, I’d say I’m sorry. That was not my purpose.”
“Dominique, I love you. But I’m afraid. Because you’ve changed something in me, ever since our wedding, since I said yes to you—even if I were to lose you now, I couldn’t go back to what I was before—you took something I had ...”
“No. I took something you never had. I grant you that’s worse.”
“What?”
“It’s said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect. But that’s not true. Self-respect is something that can’t be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man’s pretense at it.”
“Dominique, I ... I don’t want to talk.”
She looked down at his face resting against her knees, and he saw pity in her eyes, and for one moment he knew what a dreadful thing true pity is, but he kept no knowledge of it, because he slammed his mind shut before the words in which he was about to preserve it.
She bent down and kissed his forehead. It was the first kiss she had ever given him.
“I don’t want you to suffer, Peter,” she said gently. “This, now, is real—it’s I—it’s my own words—I don’t want you to suffer—I can’t feel anything else—but I feel that much.”
He pressed his lips to her hand.
When he raised his head, she looked at him as if, for a moment, he was her husband. She said: “Peter, if you could hold on to it—to what you are now——”
“I love you,” he said.
They sat silently together for a long time. He felt no strain in the silence.
The telephone rang.
It was not the sound that destroyed the moment; it was the eagerness with which Keating jumped up and ran to answer it. She heard his voice through the open door, a voice indecent in its relief:
“Hello? ... Oh, hello, Ellsworth! ... No, not a thing.... Free as a lark.... Sure, come over, come right over! ... Okey-doke!”
“It’s Ellsworth,” he said, returning to the living room. His voice was gay and it had a touch of insolence. “He wants to drop in.”
She said nothing.
He busied himself emptying ash trays that contained a single match or one butt, gathering newspapers, adding a log to the fire that did not need it, lighting more lamps. He whistled a tune from a screen operetta.
He ran to open the door when he heard the bell.
“How nice,” said Toohey, coming in. “A fire and just the two of you. Hello, Dominique. Hope I’m not intruding.”
“Hello, Ellsworth,” she said.
“You’re never intruding,” said Keating. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to see you.” He pushed a chair to the fire. “Sit down here, Ellsworth. What’ll you have? You know, when I heard your voice on the phone ... well, I wanted to jump and yelp like a pup.”
“Don’t wag your tail, though,” said Toohey. “No, no drinks, thanks. How have you been, Dominique?”
“Just as I was a year ago,” she said.
“But not as you were two years ago?”
“No.”
“What did we do two years ago this time?” Keating asked idly.
“You weren’t married,” said Toohey. “Prehistorical period. Let me see—what happened then? I think the Stoddard Temple was just being completed.”
“Oh that,” said Keating.
Toohey asked: “Hear anything about your friend Roark ... Peter?”
“No. I don’t think he’s worked for a year or more. He’s finished, this time.”
“Yes, I think so.... What have you been doing, Peter?”
“Nothing much.... Oh, I’ve just read The Gallant Gallstone.”
“Liked it?”
“Yes! You know, I think it’s a very important book. Because it’s true that there’s no such thing as free will. We can’t help what we are or what we do. It’s not our fault. Nobody’s to blame for anything. It’s all in your background and ... and your glands. If you’re good, that’s no achievement of yours—you were just lucky in your glands. If you’re rotten, nobody should punish you—you were unlucky, that’s all.” He was saying it defiantly, with a violence inappropriate to a literary discussion. He was not looking at Toohey nor at Dominique, but speaking to the room and to what that room had witnessed.
“Substantially correct,” said Toohey. “To be logical, however, we should not think of punishment for those who are rotten. Since they suffered through no fault of their own, since they were unlucky and underendowed, they should deserve a compensation of some sort—more like a reward.”
“Why—yes!” cried Keating. “That’s ... that’s logical.”
“And just,” said Toohey.
“Got the Banner pretty much where you want it, Ellsworth?” asked Dominique.
“What’s that in reference to?”
“The Gallant Gallstone.”
“Oh. No, I can’t say I have. Not quite. There are always the—imponderables.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Keating.
“Professional gossip,” said Toohey. He stretched his hands to the fire and flexed his fingers playfully. “By the way, Peter, are you doing anything about Stoneridge?”
“God damn it,” said Keating.
“What’s the matter?”
“You know what’s the matter. You know the bastard better than I do. To have a project like that going up, now, when its manna in the desert, and of all people to have that son of a bitch Wynand doing it!”
“What’s the matter with Mr. Wynand?”
“Oh come, Ellsworth! You know very well if it were anyone else, I’d get that commission just like that”—he snapped his fingers—“I wouldn’t even have to ask, the owner’d come to me. Particularly when he knows that an architect like me is practically sitting on his fanny now, compared to the work our office could handle. But Mr. Gail Wynand! You’d think he was a holy Lama who’s just allergic to the air breathed by architects!”
“I gather you’ve tried?”
“Oh, don’t talk about it. It makes me sick. I think I’ve spent three hundred dollars feeding lunches and pouring liquor into all sorts of crappy people who said they could get me to meet him. All I got is hangovers. I think it’d be easier to meet the Pope.”
“I gather you do want to get Stoneridge?”
“Are you baiting me, Ellsworth? I’d give my right arm for it.”
“That wouldn’t be advisable. You couldn’t make any drawings then—or pretend to. It would be preferable to give up something less tangible.”
“I’d give my soul.”
“Would you, Peter?” asked Dominique.
“What’s on your mind, Ellsworth?” Keating snapped.
“Just a practical suggestion,” said Toohey. “Who has been your most effective salesman in the past and got you some of your best commissions?”
“Why—Dominique I guess.”
“That’s right. And since you can’t get to Wynand and it wouldn’t do you any good if you did, don’t you think Dominique is the one who’ll be able to persuade him?”
Keating stared at him. “Are you crazy, Ellsworth?”
Dominique leaned forward. She seemed interested.
“From what I’ve heard,” she said, “Gail Wynand does not do favors for a woman, unless she’s beautiful. And if she’s beautiful, he doesn’t do it as a favor.”
Toohey looked at her, underscoring the fact that he offered no denial.
“It’s silly,” snapped Keating angrily. “How would Dominique ever get to see him?”
“By telephoning his office and making an appointment,” said Toohey.
“Who ever told you he’d grant it?”
“He did.”
“When?!”
“Late last night. Or early this morning, to be exact.”
“Ellsworth!” gasped Keating. He added: “I don’t believe it.”
“I do,” said Dominique, “or Ellsworth wouldn’t have started this conversation.” She smiled at Toohey. “So Wynand promised you to see me?”
“Yes, my dear.”
“How did you work that?”
“Oh, I offered him a convincing argument. However, it would be advisable not to delay it. You should telephone him tomorrow—if you wish to do it.”
“Why can’t she telephone now?” said Keating. “Oh, I guess it’s too late. You’ll telephone first thing in the morning.”
She looked at him, her eyes half closed, and said nothing.
“It’s a long time since you’ve taken any active interest in Peter’s career,” said Toohey. “Wouldn’t you like to undertake a difficult feat like that—for Peter’s sake?”
“If Peter wants me to.”
“If I want you to?” cried Keating. “Are you both crazy? It’s the chance of a lifetime, the ...” He saw them both looking at him curiously. He snapped: “Oh, rubbish!”
“What is rubbish, Peter?” asked Dominique.
“Are you going to be stopped by a lot of fool gossip? Why, any other architect’s wife’d crawl on her hands and knees for a chance like that to ...”
“No other architect’s wife would be offered the chance,” said Toohey. “No other architect has a wife like Dominique. You’ve always been so proud of that, Peter.”
“Dominique can take care of herself in any circumstances.”
“There’s no doubt about that.”
“All right, Ellsworth,” said Dominique. “I’ll telephone Wynand tomorrow.”
“Ellsworth, you’re wonderful!” said Keating, not looking at her.
“I believe I’d like a drink now,” said Toohey. “We should celebrate.”
When Keating hurried out to the kitchen, Toohey and Dominique looked at each other. He smiled. He glanced at the door through which Keating had gone, then nodded to her faintly, amused.
“You expected it,” said Dominique.
“Of course.”
“Now what’s the real purpose, Ellsworth?”
“Why, I want to help you get Stoneridge for Peter. It’s really a terrific commission.”
“Why are you so anxious to have me sleep with Wynand?”
“Don’t you think it would be an interesting experience for all concerned?”
“You’re not satisfied with the way my marriage has turned out, are you, Ellsworth?”
“Not entirely. Just about fifty percent. Well, nothing’s perfect in this world. One gathers what one can and then one tries further.”
“You were very anxious to have Peter marry me. You knew what the result would be, better than Peter or I.”
“Peter didn’t know it at all.”
“Well, it worked—fifty percent. You got Peter Keating where you wanted him—the leading architect of the country who’s now mud clinging to your galoshes.”
“I’ve never liked your style of expression, but it’s always been accurate. I should have said: who’s now a soul wagging its tail. Your style is gentler.”
“But the other fifty percent, Ellsworth? A failure?”
“Approximately total. My fault. I should have known better than to expect anyone like Peter Keating, even in the role of husband, to destroy you.”
“Well, you’re frank.”
“I told you once it’s the only method that will work with you. Besides, surely it didn’t take you two years to discover what I wanted of that marriage?”
“So you think Gail Wynand will finish the job?”
“Might. What do you think?”
“I think I’m only a side issue again. Didn’t you call it ‘gravy’ once? What have you got against Wynand?”
He laughed; the sound betrayed that he had not expected the question. She said contemptuously: “Don’t show that you’re shocked, Ellsworth.”
“All right. We’re taking it straight. I have nothing specific against Mr. Gail Wynand. I’ve been planning to have him meet you, for a long time. If you want minor details, he did something that annoyed me yesterday morning. He’s too observant. So I decided the time was right.”
“And there was Stoneridge.”
“And there was Stoneridge. I knew that part of it would appeal to you. You’d never sell yourself to save your country, your soul or the life of a man you loved. But you’ll sell yourself to get a commission he doesn’t deserve for Peter Keating. See what will be left of you afterward. Or of Gail Wynand. I’ll be interested to see it, too.”
“Quite correct, Ellsworth.”
“All of it? Even the part about a man you loved—if you did?”
“Yes.”
“You wouldn’t sell yourself for Roark? Though, of course, you don’t like to hear that name pronounced.”
“Howard Roark,” she said evenly.
“You have a great deal of courage, Dominique.”
Keating returned, carrying a tray of cocktails. His eyes were feverish and he made too many gestures.
Toohey raised his glass. He said:
“To Gail Wynand and the New York Banner!”