The Fountainhead Part 58

V

"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: "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 h.e.l.l?"

"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 d.a.m.n. I can play it your way. You're great, aren't you?-because you act like truck drivers, you and Mr. Gail Wynand? To h.e.l.l with decency, to h.e.l.l 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 att.i.tude 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 s.n.a.t.c.hed 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 ill.u.s.trious 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.

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 gla.s.ses 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 owners.h.i.+p 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.

"h.e.l.lo, Dominique."

"h.e.l.lo, 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 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 pa.s.ses. 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 any ent.i.ty, only a succession of adjectives fading in and out on an unformed ma.s.s. 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."

"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-by.

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. n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+pwreck 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, "Oh, h.e.l.lo, Peter," said Toohey airily. "Your sense of timing leaves much to be desired. You catch me on the worst possible evening. Busy as all h.e.l.l. 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. "h.e.l.lo, Gus," he said gaily. "How are you, you walking advertis.e.m.e.nt 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 h.e.l.l...." He leaned back farther and put one foot in a s.h.i.+ning, pointed shoe on the edge of the desk. "Listen, boy, what I wanted to tell you is go easy on old Ba.s.sett for a while. Sure he liked your work, but don't shock h.e.l.l out of him for the time being. No rough-house, see? Keep that big facial cavity of yours b.u.t.toned up.... You know d.a.m.n 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 about the British lady and the plumber?" There followed a story. The receiver yelled raucously at the end. "Well, watch your step and your digestion, angel-face. Nighty-night."

Toohey dropped the receiver, said: "Now, Peter," stretched, got up, walked to Keating and stood before him, rocking a little on his small feet, his eyes bright and kindly.

"Now, Peter, what's the matter? Has the world crashed about your nose?"

Keating reached into his inside pocket and produced a yellow check, crumpled, much handled. It bore his signature and the sum of ten thousand dollars, made out to Ellsworth M. Toohey. The gesture with which he handed it to Toohey was not that of a donor, but of a beggar.

"Please, Ellsworth ... here ... take this ... for a good cause ... for the Workshop of Social Study ... or for anything you wish ... you know best ... for a good cause ..."

Toohey held the check with the tips of his fingers, like a soiled penny, bent his head to one side, pursing his lips in appreciation, and tossed the check on his desk.

"Very handsome of you, Peter. Very handsome indeed. What's the occasion?"

"Ellsworth, you remember what you said once-that it doesn't matter what we are or do, if we help others? That's all that counts? That's good, isn't it? That's clean?"

"I haven't said it once. I've said it a million times."

"And it's really true?"

"Of course it's true. If you have the courage to accept it."

"You're my friend, aren't you? You're the only friend I've got. I ... I'm not even friendly with myself, but you are. With me, I mean, aren't you, Ellsworth?"

"But of course. Which is of more value than your own friends.h.i.+p with yourself-a rather queer conception, but quite valid."

"You understand. n.o.body else does. And you like me."

"Devotedly. Whenever I have the time."

"Ah?"

"Your sense of humor, Peter, where's your sense of humor? What's the matter? A bellyache? Or a soul-indigestion?"

"Ellsworth, I ..."

"Yes?"

"I can't tell you. Even you."

"You're a coward, Peter."

Keating stared helplessly: the voice had been severe and gentle, he did not know whether he should feel pain, insult or confidence.