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room, and Keating tried to postpone the moment of thinking what he had to think

now.

"All right, Peter," said Dominique, rising, "let’s get it over with."

When he lay in the darkness beside her, his desire satisfied and left hungrier

than ever by the unmoving body that had not responded, not even in revulsion,

when he felt defeated in the one act of mastery he had hoped to impose upon her,

his first whispered words were: "God damn you!"

He heard no movement from her.

Then he remembered the discovery which the moments of passion had wiped off his

mind.

"Who was he?" he asked.

"Howard Roark," she answered.

"All right," he snapped, "you don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to!"

He switched on the light. He saw her lying still, naked, her head thrown back.

Her face looked peaceful, innocent, clean. She said to the ceiling, her voice

gentle: "Peter, if I could do this...I can do anything now...."

"If you think I’m going to bother you often, if that’s your idea of..."

#

"As often or as seldom as you wish, Peter."

Next morning, entering the dining room for breakfast, Dominique found a

florist’s box, long and white, resting across her plate.

"What’s that?" she asked the maid.

"It was brought this morning, madam, with instructions to be put on the

breakfast table."

The box was addressed to Mrs. Peter Keating. Dominique opened it. It contained a

few branches of white lilac, more extravagantly luxurious than orchids at this

time of the year. There was a small card with a name written upon it in large

letters that still held the quality of a hand’s dashing movement, as if the

letters were laughing on the pasteboard: "Ellsworth M. Toohey."

"How nice!" said Keating. "I wondered why we hadn’t heard from him at all

yesterday."

"Please put them in water, Mary," said Dominique, handing the box to the maid.

In the afternoon Dominique telephoned Toohey and invited him for dinner.

The dinner took place a few days later. Keating’s mother had pleaded some

previous engagement and escaped for the evening; she explained it to herself by

believing that she merely needed time to get used to things. So there were only

three places set on the dining-room table, candles in crystal holders, a

centerpiece of blue flowers and glass bubbles.

When Toohey entered he bowed to his hosts in a manner proper to a court

reception. Dominique looked like a society hostess who had always been a society

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hostess and could not possibly be imagined as anything else.

"Well, Ellsworth? Well?" Keating asked, with a gesture that included the hall,

the air and Dominique.

"My dear Peter," said Toohey, "let’s skip the obvious."

Dominique led the way into the living room. She wore a dinner dress--a white

satin blouse tailored like a man’s, and a long black skirt, straight and simple

as the polished planes of her hair. The narrow band of the skirt about her

waistline seemed to state that two hands could encircle her waist completely or

snap her figure in half without much effort. The short sleeves left her arms

bare, and she wore a plain gold bracelet, too large and heavy for her thin

wrist. She had an appearance of elegance become perversion, an appearance of

wise, dangerous maturity achieved by looking like a very young girl.

"Ellsworth, isn’t it wonderful?" said Keating, watching Dominique as one watches

a fat bank account. "No less than I expected," said Toohey. "And no more." At

the dinner table Keating did most of the talking. He seemed possessed by a

talking jag. He turned over words with the sensuous abandon of a cat rolling in

catnip.

"Actually, Ellsworth, it was Dominique who invited you. I didn’t ask her to.

You’re our first formal guest. I think that’s wonderful. My wife and my best

friend. I’ve always had the silly idea that you two didn’t like each other. God

knows where I get those notions. But this is what makes me so damn happy--the

three of us, together."

"Then you don’t believe in mathematics, do you, Peter?" said Toohey. "Why the

surprise? Certain figures in combination have to give certain results. Granting

three entities such as Dominique, you and I--this had to be the inevitable sum."

"They say three’s a crowd," laughed Keating. "But that’s bosh. Two are better

than one, and sometimes three are better than two, it all depends."

"The only thing wrong with that old cliché," said Toohey, "is the erroneous

implication that ’a crowd’ is a term of opprobrium. It is quite the opposite. As

you are so merrily discovering. Three, I might add, is a mystic key number. As

for instance, the Holy Trinity. Or the triangle, without which we would have no

movie industry. There are so many variations upon the triangle, not necessarily

unhappy. Like the three of us--with me serving as understudy for the hypotenuse,

quite an appropriate substitution, since I’m replacing my antipode, don’t you

think so, Dominique?"

They were finishing dessert when Keating was called to the telephone. They could

hear his impatient voice in the next room, snapping instructions to a draftsman

who was working late on a rush job and needed help. Toohey turned, looked at

Dominique and smiled. The smile said everything her manner had not allowed to be

said earlier. There was no visible movement on her face, as she held his glance,

but there was a change of expression, as if she were acknowledging his meaning

instead of refusing to understand it. He would have preferred the closed look of

refusal. The acceptance was infinitely more scornful.

"So you’ve come back to the fold, Dominique?"

"Yes, Ellsworth."

"No more pleas for mercy?"

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"Does it appear as if they will be necessary?"

"No. I admire you, Dominique....How do you like it? I should imagine Peter is

not bad, though not as good as the man we’re both thinking of, who’s probably

superlative, but you’ll never have a chance to learn."

She did not look disgusted; she looked genuinely puzzled.

"What are you talking about, Ellsworth?"

"Oh, come, my dear, we’re past pretending now, aren’t we? You’ve been in love

with Roark from that first moment you saw him in Kiki Holcombe’s drawing

room--or shall I be honest?--you wanted to sleep with him--but he wouldn’t spit

at you--hence all your subsequent behavior."

"Is that what you thought?" she asked quietly. "Wasn’t it obvious? The woman

scorned. As obvious as the fact that Roark had to be the man you’d want. That

you’d want him in the most primitive way. And that he’d never know you existed."

"I overestimated you, Ellsworth," she said. She had lost all interest in his

presence, even the need of caution. She looked bored. He frowned, puzzled.

Keating came back. Toohey slapped his shoulder as he passed by on the way to his

seat.

"Before I go, Peter, we must have a chat about the rebuilding of the Stoddard

Temple. I want you to bitch that up, too."

"Ellsworth...!" he gasped.

Toohey laughed. "Don’t be stuffy, Peter. Just a little professional vulgarity.

Dominique won’t mind. She’s an ex-newspaper woman."

"What’s the matter, Ellsworth?" Dominique asked. "Feeling pretty desperate? The

weapons aren’t up to your usual standard." She rose. "Shall we have coffee in

the drawing room?"

#

Hopton Stoddard added a generous sum to the award he had won from Roark, and the

Stoddard Temple was rebuilt for its new purpose by a group of architects chosen

by Ellsworth Toohey: Peter Keating, Gordon L. Prescott, John Erik Snyte and

somebody named Gus Webb, a boy of twenty-four who liked to utter obscenities

when passing well-bred women on the street, and who had never handled an

architectural commission of his own. Three of these men had social and

professional standing; Gus Webb had none; Toohey included him for that reason.

Of the four Gus Webb had the loudest voice and the greatest self-assurance. Gus

Webb said he was afraid of nothing; he meant it. They were all members of the

Council of American Builders.

The Council of American Builders had grown. After the Stoddard trial many

earnest discussions were held informally in the club rooms of the A.G.A. The

attitude of the A.G.A. toward Ellsworth Toohey had not been cordial,

particularly since the establishment of his Council. But the trial brought a

subtle change; many members pointed out that the article in "One Small Voice"

had actually brought about the Stoddard lawsuit; and that a man who could force

clients to sue was a man to be treated with caution. So it was suggested that

Ellsworth Toohey should be invited to address the A.G.A. at one of its

luncheons. Some members objected, Guy Francon among them. The most passionate

objector was a young architect who made an eloquent speech, his voice trembling

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with the embarrassment of speaking in public for the first time; he said that he

admired Ellsworth Toohey and had always agreed with Toohey’s social ideals, but

if a group of people felt that some person was acquiring power over them, that

was the time to fight such a person. The majority overruled him. Ellsworth

Toohey was asked to speak at the luncheon, the attendance was enormous and

Toohey made a witty, gracious speech. Many members of the A.G.A. joined the

Council of American Builders, John Erik Snyte among the first.

The four architects in charge of the Stoddard reconstruction met in Keating’s

office, around a table on which they spread blueprints of the Temple,

photographs of Roark’s original drawings, obtained from the contractor, and a

clay model which Keating had ordered made. They talked about the depression and

its disastrous effect on the building industry; they talked about women, and

Gordon L. Prescott told a few jokes of a bathroom nature. Then Gus Webb raised

his fist and smacked it plump upon the roof of the model which was not quite dry

and spread into a flat mess. "Well, boys," he said, "let’s go to work."

"Gus, you son of a bitch," said Keating, "the thing cost money."

"Balls!" said Gus, "we’re not paying for it."

Each of them had a set of photographs of the original sketches with the

signature "Howard Roark" visible in the corner. They spent many evenings and

many weeks, drawing their own versions right on the originals, remaking and

improving. They took longer than necessary. They made more changes than

required. They seemed to find pleasure in doing it. Afterward, they put the four

versions together and made a cooperative combination. None of them had ever

enjoyed a job quite so much. They had long, friendly conferences. There were

minor dissensions, such as Gus Webb saying: "Hell, Gordon, if the kitchen’s

going to be yours, then the johns’ve got to be mine," but these were only

surface ripples. They felt a sense of unity and an anxious affection for one

another, the kind of brotherhood that makes a man withstand the third degree

rather than squeal on the gang.

The Stoddard Temple was not torn down, but its framework was carved into five

floors, containing dormitories, schoolrooms, infirmary, kitchen, laundry. The

entrance hall was paved with colored marble, the stairways had railings of

hand-wrought aluminum, the shower stalls were glass-enclosed, the recreation

rooms had gold-leafed Corinthian pilasters. The huge windows were left

untouched, merely crossed by floorlines.

The four architects had decided to achieve an effect of harmony and therefore

not to use any historical style in its pure form. Peter Keating designed the

white marble semi-Doric portico that rose over the main entrance, and the

Venetian balconies for which new doors were cut. John Erik Snyte designed the

small semi-Gothic spire surmounted by a cross, and the bandcourses of stylized

acanthus leaves which were cut into the limestone of the walls. Gordon L.

Prescott designed the semi-Renaissance cornice, and the glass-enclosed terrace

projecting from the third floor. Gus Webb designed a cubistic ornament to frame

the original windows, and the modern neon sign on the roof, which read: "The

Hopton Stoddard Home for Subnormal Children."

"Comes the revolution," said Gus Webb, looking at the completed structure, "and

every kid in the country will have a home like that!"

The original shape of the building remained discernible. It was not like a

corpse whose fragments had been mercifully scattered; it was like a corpse

hacked to pieces and reassembled.

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In September the tenants of the Home moved in. A small, expert staff was chosen

by Toohey. It had been harder to find the children who qualified as inmates.

Most of them had to be taken from other institutions. Sixty-five children, their

ages ranging from three to fifteen, were picked out by zealous ladies who were

full of kindness and so made a point of rejecting those who could be cured and

selecting only the hopeless cases. There was a fifteen-year-old boy who had

never learned to speak; a grinning child who could not be taught to read or

write; a girl born without a nose, whose father was also her grandfather; a

person called "Jackie" of whose age or sex nobody could be certain. They marched

into their new home, their eyes staring vacantly, the stare of death before

which no world existed.

On warm evenings children from the slums nearby would sneak into the park of the

Stoddard Home and gaze wistfully at the playrooms, the gymnasium, the kitchen

beyond the big windows. These children had filthy clothes and smudged faces,

agile little bodies, impertinent grins, and eyes bright with a roaring,