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until we’re married. I know it’s a senseless gesture. I know that a wedding

ceremony has no significance for either one of us. But to be conventional is the

only abnormality possible between us. That’s why I want it. I have no other way

of making an exception."

"As you wish, Gail."

Then he pulled her to him and he kissed her mouth. It was the completion of his

words, the finished statement, a statement of such intensity that she tried to

stiffen her body, not to respond, and felt her body responding, forced to forget

everything but the physical fact of a man who held her.

He let her go. She knew he had noticed. He smiled and said:

"You’re tired, Dominique. Shall I say good night? I want to remain here for a

while."

She turned obediently and walked alone down to her cabin.

5.

"WHAT’S the matter? Don’t I get Stoneridge?" snapped Peter Keating.

Dominique walked into the living room. He followed, waiting in the open door.

The elevator boy brought in her luggage, and left. She said, removing her

gloves:

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"You’ll get Stoneridge, Peter. Mr. Wynand will tell you the rest himself. He

wants to see you tonight. At eight-thirty. At his home."

"Why in hell?"

"He’ll tell you."

She slapped her gloves softly against her palm, a small gesture of finality,

like a period at the end of a sentence. She turned to leave the room. He stood

in her way.

"I don’t care," he said. "I don’t give a damn. I can play it your way. You’re

great, aren’t you?--because you act like truck drivers, you and Mr. Gail Wynand?

To hell with decency, to hell with the other fellow’s feelings? Well, I can do

that too. I’ll use you both and I’ll get what I can out of it--and that’s all I

care. How do you like it? No point when the worm refuses to be hurt? Spoils the

fun?"

"I think that’s much better, Peter. I’m glad." He found himself unable to

preserve this attitude when he entered Wynand’s study that evening. He could not

escape the awe of being admitted into Gail Wynand’s home. By the time he crossed

the room to the seat facing the desk he felt nothing but a sense of weight, and

he wondered whether his feet had left prints on the soft carpet; like the leaded

feet of a deep-sea diver. "What I have to tell you, Mr. Keating, should never

have needed to be said or done," said Wynand. Keating had never heard a man

speak in a manner so consciously controlled. He thought crazily that it sounded

as if Wynand held his fist closed over his voice and directed each syllable.

"Any extra word I speak will be offensive, so I shall be brief. I am going to

marry your wife. She is leaving for Reno tomorrow. Here is the contract for

Stoneridge. I have signed it. Attached is a check for two hundred and fifty

thousand dollars. It is in addition to what you will receive for your work under

the contract. I’ll appreciate it if you will now make no comment of any kind. I

realize that I could have had your consent for less, but I wish no discussion.

It would be intolerable if we were to bargain about it. Therefore, will you

please take this and consider the matter settled?"

He extended the contract across the desk. Keating saw the pale blue rectangle of

the check held to the top of the page by a paper clip. The clip flashed silver

in the light of the desk lamp.

Keating’s hand did not reach to meet the paper. He said, his chin moving

awkwardly to frame the words: "I don’t want it. You can have my consent for

nothing." He saw a look of astonishment--and almost of kindness--on Wynand’s

face.

"You don’t want it? You don’t want Stoneridge either?"

"I want Stoneridge!" Keating’s hand rose and snatched the paper. "I want it all!

Why should you get away with it? Why should I care?"

Wynand got up. He said, relief and regret in his voice: "Right, Mr. Keating. For

a moment, you had almost justified your marriage. Let it remain what it was.

Good night."

Keating did not go home. He walked to the apartment of Neil Dumont, his new

designer and best friend. Neil Dumont was a lanky, anemic society youth, with

shoulders stooped under the burden of too many illustrious ancestors. He was not

a good designer, but he had connections; he was obsequious to Keating in the

office, and Keating was obsequious to him after office hours.

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He found Dumont at home. Together, they got Gordon Prescott and Vincent

Knowlton, and started out to make a wild night of it. Keating did not drink

much. He paid for everything. He paid more than necessary. He seemed anxious to

find things to pay for. He gave exorbitant tips. He kept asking: "We’re

friends--aren’t we friends?--aren’t we?" He looked at the glasses around him and

he watched the lights dancing in the liquid. He looked at the three pairs of

eyes; they were blurred, but they turned upon him occasionally with contentment.

They were soft and comforting.

#

That evening, her bags packed and ready in her room, Dominique went to see

Steven Mallory.

She had not seen Roark for twenty months. She had called on Mallory once in a

while. Mallory knew that these visits were breakdowns in a struggle she would

not name; he knew that she did not want to come, that her rare evenings with him

were time torn out of her life. He never asked any questions and he was always

glad to see her. They talked quietly, with a feeling of companionship such as

that of an old married couple; as if he had possessed her body, and the wonder

of it had long since been consumed, and nothing remained but an untroubled

intimacy. He had never touched her body, but he had possessed it in a deeper

kind of ownership when he had done her statue, and they could not lose the

special sense of each other it had given them.

He smiled when he opened the door and saw her.

"Hello, Dominique."

"Hello, Steve. Interrupting you?"

"No. Come in."

He had a studio, a huge, sloppy place in an old building. She noticed the change

since her last visit. The room had an air of laughter, like a breath held too

long and released. She saw second-hand furniture, an Oriental rug of rare

texture and sensuous color, jade ash trays, pieces of sculpture that came from

historical excavations, anything he had wished to seize, helped by the sudden

fortune of Wynand’s patronage. The walls looked strangely bare above the gay

clutter. He had bought no paintings. A single sketch hung over his

studio--Roark’s original drawing of the Stoddard Temple.

She looked slowly about her, noting every object and the reason for its

presence. He kicked two chairs toward the fireplace and they sat down, one at

each side of the fire.

He said, quite simply:

"Clayton, Ohio."

"Doing what?"

"A new building for Janer’s Department Store. Five stories. On Main Street."

"How long has he been there?"

"About a month."

It was the first question he answered whenever she came here, without making her

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ask it. His simple ease spared her the necessity of explanation or pretense; his

manner included no comment.

"I’m going away tomorrow, Steve."

"For long?"

"Six weeks. Reno."

"I’m glad."

"I’d rather not tell you now what I’ll do when I come back. You won’t be glad."

"I’ll try to be--if it’s what you want to do."

"It’s what I want to do."

One log still kept its shape on the pile of coals in the fireplace; it was

checkered into small squares and it glowed without flame, like a solid string of

lighted windows. He reached down and threw a fresh log on the coals. It cracked

the string of windows in half and sent sparks shooting up against the sooted

bricks.

He talked about his own work. She listened, as if she were an emigrant hearing

her homeland’s language for a brief while.

In a pause, she asked:

"How is he, Steve?"

"As he’s always been. He doesn’t change, you know."

He kicked the log. A few coals rolled out. He pushed them back. He said:

"I often think that he’s the only one of us who’s achieved immortality. I don’t

mean in the sense of fame and I don’t mean that he won’t die some day. But he’s

living it. I think he is what the conception really means. You know how people

long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes. When you meet them,

they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill some part of

themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict--and they call it growth. At

the end there’s nothing left, nothing unreversed or unbetrayed; as if there had

never been an entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an

unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have never held for a

single moment? But Howard--one can imagine him existing forever."

She sat looking at the fire. It gave a deceptive semblance of life to her face.

After a while he asked: "How do you like all the new things I got?"

"I like them. I like your having them."

"I didn’t tell you what happened to me since I saw you last. The completely

incredible. Gail Wynand..."

"Yes, I know about that."

"You do? Wynand, of all people--what on earth made him discover me?"

"I know that too. I’ll tell you when I come back."

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"He has an amazing judgment. Amazing for him. He bought the best."

"Yes, he would."

Then she asked, without transition, yet he knew that she was not speaking of

Wynand:

"Steve, has he ever asked you about me?"

"No."

"Have you told him about my coming here?"

"No."

"Is that--for my sake, Steve?"

"No. For his."

He knew he had told her everything she wanted to know.

She said, rising:

"Let’s have some tea. Show me where you keep your stuff. I’ll fix it."

#

Dominique left for Reno early in the morning. Keating was still asleep and she

did not awaken him to say good-bye.

When he opened his eyes, he knew that she was gone, before he looked at the

clock, by the quality of the silence in the house. He thought he should say

"Good riddance," but he did not say it and he did not feel it. What he felt was

a vast, flat sentence without subject--"It’s no use"--related neither to himself

nor to Dominique. He was alone and there was no necessity to pretend anything.

He lay in bed, on his back, his arms flung out helplessly. His face looked

humble and his eyes bewildered. He felt that it was an end and a death, but he

did not mean the loss of Dominique.

He got up and dressed. In the bathroom he found a hand towel she had used and

discarded. He picked it up, he pressed his face to it and held it for a long

time, not in sorrow, but in nameless emotion, not understanding, knowing only

that he had loved her twice--on that evening when Toohey telephoned, and now.

Then he opened his fingers and let the towel slip down to the floor, like a

liquid running between his fingers.

He went to his office and worked as usual. Nobody knew of his divorce and he

felt no desire to inform anyone. Neil Dumont winked at him and drawled: "I say,

Pete, you look peaked." He shrugged and turned his back. The sight of Dumont

made him sick today.

He left the office early. A vague instinct kept pulling at him, like hunger, at

first, then taking shape. He had to see Ellsworth Toohey. He had to reach

Toohey. He felt like the survivor of a shipwreck swimming toward a distant

light.

That evening he dragged himself to Ellsworth Toohey’s apartment. When he

entered, he felt dimly glad of his self-control, because Toohey seemed to notice

nothing in his face.

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"Oh, hello, Peter," said Toohey airily. "Your sense of timing leaves much to be

desired. You catch me on the worst possible evening. Busy as all hell. But don’t

let that bother you. What are friends for but to inconvenience one? Sit down,

sit down, I’ll be with you in a minute."

"I’m sorry, Ellsworth. But...I had to."

"Make yourself at home. Just ignore me for a minute, will you?"

Keating sat down and waited. Toohey worked, making notes on sheets of

typewritten copy. He sharpened a pencil, the sound grating like a saw across

Keating’s nerves. He bent over his copy again, rustling the pages once in a

while.

Half an hour later he pushed the papers aside and smiled at Keating. "That’s

that," he said. Keating made a small movement forward. "Sit tight," said Toohey,

"just one telephone call I’ve got to make."

He dialed the number of Gus Webb. "Hello, Gus," he said gaily. "How are you, you

walking advertisement for contraceptives?" Keating had never heard that tone of

loose intimacy from Toohey, a special tone of brotherhood that permitted

sloppiness. He heard Webb’s piercing voice say something and laugh in the

receiver. The receiver went on spitting out rapid sounds from deep down in its

tube, like a throat being cleared. The words could not be recognized, only their

quality; the quality of abandon and insolence, with high shrieks of mirth once

in a while.

Toohey leaned back in his chair, listening, half smiling. "Yes," he said

occasionally, "uh-huh....You said it, boy....Surer’n hell...." He leaned back

farther and put one foot in a shining, pointed shoe on the edge of the desk.

"Listen, boy, what I wanted to tell you is go easy on old Bassett for a while.

Sure he likes your work, but don’t shock hell out of him for the time being. No

roughhouse, see? Keep that big facial cavity of yours buttoned up....You know

damn well who I am to tell you....That’s right....That’s the stuff, kid....Oh,

he did? Good, angel-face....Well, bye-bye--oh, say, Gus, have you heard the one