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to. But I will live for you, through every minute and every shameful act I take,

I will live for you in my own way, in the only way I can."

He made a movement to speak, and she said:

"Wait. Let me finish. You could ask, why not kill myself then. Because I love

you. Because you exist. That alone is so much that it won’t allow me to die. And

since I must be alive in order to know that you are, I will live in the world as

it is, in the manner of life it demands. Not halfway, but completely. Not

pleading and running from it, but walking out to meet it, beating it to the pain

and the ugliness, being first to choose the worst it can do to me. Not as the

wife of some half-decent human being, but as the wife of Peter Keating. And only

within my own mind, only where nothing can touch it, kept sacred by the

protecting wall of my own degradation, there will be the thought of you and the

knowledge of you, and I shall say ’Howard Roark to myself once in a while, and I

shall feel that I have deserved to say it." She stood before him, her face

raised; her lips were not drawn, but closed softly, yet the shape of her mouth

was too definite on her face, a shape of pain and tenderness, and resignation.

In his face she saw suffering that was made old, as if it had been part of him

for a long time, because it was accepted, and it looked not like a wound, but

like a scar.

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"Dominique, if I told you now to have that marriage annulled at once--to forget

the world and my struggle--to feel no anger, no concern, no hope--just to exist

for me, for my need of you--as my wife--as my property...?"

He saw in her face what she had seen in his when she told him of her marriage;

but he was not frightened and he watched it calmly. After a while, she answered

and the words did not come from her lips, but as if her lips were forced to

gather the sounds from the outside: "I’d obey you."

"Now you see why I won’t do it. I won’t try to stop you. I love you, Dominique."

She closed her eyes, and he said:

"You’d rather not hear it now? But I want you to hear it. We never need to say

anything to each other when we’re together. This is--for the time when we won’t

be together. I love you, Dominique. As selfishly as the fact that I exist. As

selfishly as my lungs breathe air. I breathe for my own necessity, for the fuel

of my body, for my survival. I’ve given you, not my sacrifice or my pity, but my

ego and my naked need. This is the only way you can wish to be loved. This is

the only way I can want you to love me. If you married me now, I would become

your whole existence. But I would not want you then. You would not want

yourself--and so you would not love me long. To say ’I love you’ one must know

first how to say the ’I.’ The kind of surrender I could have from you now would

give me nothing but an empty hulk. If I demanded it, I’d destroy you. That’s why

I won’t stop you. I’ll let you go to your husband. I don’t know how I’ll live

through tonight, but I will. I want you whole, as I am, as you’ll remain in the

battle you’ve chosen. A battle is never selfless."

She heard, in the measured tension of his words, that it was harder for him to

speak them than for her to listen. So she listened.

"You must learn not to be afraid of the world. Not to be held by it as you are

now. Never to be hurt by it as you were in that courtroom. I must let you learn

it. I can’t help you. You must find your own way. When you have, you’ll come

back to me. They won’t destroy me, Dominique. And they won’t destroy you. You’ll

win, because you’ve chosen the hardest way of fighting for your freedom from the

world. I’ll wait for you. I love you. I’m saying this now for all the years

we’ll have to wait. I love you, Dominique."

Then he kissed her and let her go.

15.

AT NINE O’CLOCK that morning Peter Keating was pacing the floor of his room, his

door locked. He forgot that it was nine o’clock and that Catherine was waiting

for him. He had made himself forget her and everything she implied.

The door of his room was locked to protect him from his mother. Last night,

seeing his furious restlessness, she had forced him to tell her the truth. He

had snapped that he was married to Dominique Francon, and he had added some sort

of explanation about Dominique going out of town to announce the marriage to

some old relative. His mother had been so busy with gasps of delight and

questions, that he had been able to ’answer nothing and to hide his panic; he

was not certain that he had a wife and that she would come back to him in the

morning.

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He had forbidden his mother to announce the news, but she had made a few

telephone calls last night, and she was making a few more this morning, and now

their telephone was ringing constantly, with eager voices asking: "Is it true?"

pouring out sounds of amazement and congratulations. Keating could see the news

spreading through the city in widening circles, by the names and social

positions of the people who called. He refused to answer the telephone. It

seemed to him that every corner of New York was flooded with celebration and

that he alone, hidden in the watertight caisson of his room, was cold and lost

and horrified.

It was almost noon when the doorbell rang, and he pressed his hands to his ears,

not to know who it was and what they wanted. Then he heard his mother’s voice,

so shrill with joy that it sounded embarrassingly silly: "Petey darling, don’t

you want to come out and kiss your wife?" He flew out into the hall, and there

was Dominique, removing her soft mink coat, the fur throwing to his nostrils a

wave of the street’s cold air touched by her perfume. She was smiling correctly,

looking straight at him, saying: "Good morning, Peter."

He stood drawn up, for one instant, and in that instant he relived all the

telephone calls and felt the triumph to which they entitled him. He moved as a

man in the arena of a crowded stadium, he smiled as if he felt the ray of an arc

light playing in the creases of his smile, and he said: "Dominique my dear, this

is like a dream come true!"

The dignity of their doomed understanding was gone and their marriage was what

it had been intended to be.

She seemed glad of it. She said: "Sorry you didn’t carry me over the threshold,

Peter." He did not kiss her, but took her hand and kissed her arm above the

wrist, in casual, intimate tenderness.

He saw his mother standing there, and he said with a dashing gesture of triumph:

"Mother--Dominique Keating."

He saw his mother kissing her. Dominique returned the kiss gravely. Mrs. Keating

was gulping: "My dear, I’m so happy, so happy, God bless you, I had no idea you

were so beautiful!"

He did not know what to do next, but Dominique took charge, simply, leaving them

no time for wonder. She walked into the living room and she said: "Let’s have

lunch first, and then you’ll show me the place, Peter. My things will be here in

an hour or so."

Mrs. Keating beamed: "Lunch is all ready for three, Miss Fran..." She stopped.

"Oh, dear, what am I to call you, honey? Mrs. Keating or..."

"Dominique, of course," Dominique answered without smiling.

"Aren’t we going to announce, to invite anyone, to...?" Keating began, but

Dominique said:

"Afterwards, Peter. It will announce itself."

Later, when her luggage arrived, he saw her walking into his bedroom without

hesitation. She instructed the maid how to hang up her clothes, she asked him to

help her rearrange the contents of the closets.

Mrs. Keating looked puzzled. "But aren’t you children going to go away at all?

It’s all so sudden and romantic, but--no honeymoon of any kind?"

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"No," said Dominique, "I don’t want to take Peter away from his work."

He said: "This is temporary of course, Dominique. We’ll have to move to another

apartment, a bigger one. I want you to choose it."

"Why, no," she said. "I don’t think that’s necessary. We’ll remain here."

"I’ll move out," Mrs. Keating offered generously, without thinking, prompted by

an overwhelming fear of Dominique. "I’ll take a little place for myself."

"No," said Dominique. "I’d rather you wouldn’t. I want to change nothing. I want

to fit myself into Peter’s life just as it is."

"That’s sweet of you!" Mrs. Keating smiled, while Keating thought numbly that it

was not sweet of her at all.

Mrs. Keating knew that when she had recovered she would hate her

daughter-in-law. She could have accepted snubbing. She could not forgive

Dominique’s grave politeness.

The telephone rang. Keating’s chief designer at the office delivered his

congratulations and said: "We just heard it, Peter, and Guy’s pretty stunned. I

really think you ought to call him up or come over here or something."

Keating hurried to the office, glad to escape from his house for a while. He

entered the office like a perfect figure of a radiant young lover. He laughed

and shook hands in the drafting room, through noisy congratulations, gay shouts

of envy and a few smutty references. Then he hastened to Francon’s office.

For an instant he felt oddly guilty when he entered and saw the smile on

Francon’s face, a smile like a blessing. He tugged affectionately at Francon’s

shoulders and he muttered: "I’m so happy, Guy, I’m so happy..."

"I’ve always expected it," said Francon quietly, "but now I feel right. Now it’s

right that it should be all yours, Peter, all of it, this room, everything,

soon."

"What are you talking about?"

"Come, you always understand. I’m tired, Peter. You know, there comes a time

when you get tired in a way that’s final and then...No, you wouldn’t know,

you’re too young. But hell, Peter, of what use am I around here? The funny part

of it is that I don’t care any more even about pretending to be of any use....I

like to be honest sometimes. It’s a nice sort of feeling....Well, anyway, it

might be another year or two, but then I’m going to retire. Then it’s all yours.

It might amuse me to hang on around here just a little longer--you know, I

actually love the place--it’s so busy, it’s done so well, people respect us--it

was a good firm, Francon & Heyer, wasn’t it?--What the hell am I saying? Francon

& Keating. Then it will be just Keating....Peter," he asked softly, "why don’t

you look happy?"

"Of course I’m happy, I’m very grateful and all that, but why in blazes should

you think of retiring now?"

"I don’t mean that. I mean--why don’t you look happy when I say that it will be

yours? I...I’d like you to be happy about that, Peter."

"For God’s sake, Guy, you’re being morbid, you’re..."

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"Peter, it’s very important to me--that you should be happy at what I’m leaving

you. That you should be proud of it. And you are, aren’t you, Peter? You are?"

"Well, who wouldn’t be?" He did not look at Francon. He could not stand the

sound of pleading in Francon’s voice.

"Yes, who wouldn’t be? Of course....And you are, Peter?"

"What do you want?" snapped Keating angrily.

"I want you to feel proud of me, Peter," said Francon humbly, simply,

desperately. "I want to know that I’ve accomplished something. I want to feel

that it had some meaning. At the last summing up, I want to be sure that it

wasn’t all--for nothing."

"You’re not sure of that? You’re not sure?" Keating’s eyes were murderous, as if

Francon were a sudden danger to him.

"What’s the matter, Peter?" Francon asked gently, almost indifferently.

"God damn you, you have no right--not to be sure! At your age, with your name,

with your prestige, with your..."

"I want to be sure, Peter. I’ve worked very hard."

"But you’re not sure!" He was furious and frightened, and so he wanted to hurt,

and he flung out the one thing that could hurt most, forgetting that it hurt

him, not Francon, that Francon wouldn’t know, had never known, wouldn’t even

guess: "Well, I know somebody who’ll be sure, at the end of his life, who’ll be

so God-damn sure I’d like to cut his damn throat for it!"

"Who?" asked Francon quietly, without interest. "Guy! Guy, what’s the matter

with us? What are we talking about?"

"I don’t know," said Francon. He looked tired.

That evening Francon came to Keating’s house for dinner. He was dressed

jauntily, and he twinkled with his old gallantry as he kissed Mrs. Keating’s

hand. But he looked grave when he congratulated Dominique and he found little to

say to her; there was a pleading look in his eyes when he glanced up at her

face. Instead of the bright, cutting mockery he had expected from her, he saw a

sudden understanding. She said nothing, but bent down and kissed him on the

forehead and held her lips pressed gently to his head a second longer than

formality required. He felt a warm flood of gratitude--and then he felt

frightened. "Dominique," he whispered--the others could not hear him--"how

terribly unhappy you must be...." She laughed gaily, taking his arm: "Why, no,

Father, how can you say that!"

"Forgive me," he muttered, "I’m just stupid....This is really wonderful...."

Guests kept coming in all evening, uninvited and unannounced, anyone who had

heard the news and felt privileged to drop in. Keating did not know whether he

was glad to see them or not. It seemed all right, so long as the gay confusion

lasted. Dominique behaved exquisitely. He did not catch a single hint of sarcasm

in her manner.

It was late when the last guest departed and they were left alone among the

filled ash trays and empty glasses. They sat at opposite ends of the living