The Fountainhead Part 71

Wynand did not move his hand, only parted his fingers and let the cardboard drop face down on the desk.

"It will be erected, Mr. Roark. Just as you designed it. Just as it stands on this sketch. On one condition."

Roark sat leaning back, his hands in his pockets, attentive, waiting.

"You don't want to ask me what condition, Mr. Roark? Very well, I'll tell you. I shall accept this house on condition that you accept the deal I offer you. I wish to sign a contract whereby you will be sole architect for any building I undertake to erect in the future. As you realize, this would be quite an a.s.signment. I venture to say I control more structural work than any other single person in the country. Every man in your profession has wanted to be known as my exclusive architect. I am offering it to you. In exchange, you will have to submit yourself to certain conditions. Before I name them, I'd like to point out some of the consequences, should you refuse. As you may have heard, I do not like to be refused. The power I hold can work two ways. It would be easy for me to arrange that no commission be available to you anywhere in this country. You have a small following of your own, but no prospective employer can withstand the kind of pressure I am in a position to exert. You have gone through wasted periods of your life before. They were nothing, compared to the blockade I can impose. You might have to go back to a granite quarry-oh yes, I know about that, summer of 1928, the Francon quarry in Connecticut-how?-private detectives, Mr. Roark-you might have to go back to a granite quarry, only I shall see to it that the quarries also will be closed to you. Now I'll tell you what I want of you."

In all the gossip about Gail Wynand, no one had ever mentioned the expression of his face as it was in this moment. The few men who had seen it did not talk about it. Of these men, Dwight Carson had been the first. Wynand's lips were parted, his eyes brilliant. It was an expression of sensual pleasure derived from agony-the agony of his victim or his own, or both.

"I want you to design all my future commercial structures-as the public wishes commercial structures to be designed. You'll build Colonial houses, Rococo hotels and semi-Grecian office buildings. You'll exercise your matchless ingenuity within forms chosen by the taste of the people -and you'll make money for me. You'll take your spectacular talent and make it obedient. Originality and subservience together. They call it harmony. You'll create in your sphere what the Banner Banner is in mine. Do you think it took no talent to create the is in mine. Do you think it took no talent to create the Banner? Banner? Such will be your future career. But the house you've designed for me shall be erected as you designed it. It will be the last Roark building to rise on earth. n.o.body will have one after mine. You've read about ancient rulers who put to death the architect of their palace, that no others might equal the glory he had given them. They killed the architect or cut his eyes out. Modern methods are different. For the rest of your life you'll obey the will of the majority. I shan't attempt to offer you any arguments. I am merely stating an alternative. You're the kind of man who can understand plain language. You have a simple choice: if you refuse, you'll never build anything again; if you accept, you'll build this house which you want so much to see erected, and a great many other houses which you won't like, but which will make money for both of us. For the rest of your life you'll design rental developments, such as Stoneridge. That is what I want." Such will be your future career. But the house you've designed for me shall be erected as you designed it. It will be the last Roark building to rise on earth. n.o.body will have one after mine. You've read about ancient rulers who put to death the architect of their palace, that no others might equal the glory he had given them. They killed the architect or cut his eyes out. Modern methods are different. For the rest of your life you'll obey the will of the majority. I shan't attempt to offer you any arguments. I am merely stating an alternative. You're the kind of man who can understand plain language. You have a simple choice: if you refuse, you'll never build anything again; if you accept, you'll build this house which you want so much to see erected, and a great many other houses which you won't like, but which will make money for both of us. For the rest of your life you'll design rental developments, such as Stoneridge. That is what I want."

He leaned forward, waiting for one of the reactions he knew well and enjoyed: a look of anger, or indignation, or ferocious pride.

"Why, of course," said Roark gaily. "I'll be glad to do it. That's easy."

He reached over, took a pencil and the first piece of paper he saw on Wynand's desk-a letter with an imposing letterhead. He drew rapidly on the back of the letter. The motion of his hand was smooth and confident. Wynand looked at his face bent over the paper; he saw the unwrinkled forehead, the straight line of the eyebrows, attentive, but untroubled by effort.

Roark raised his head and threw the paper to Wynand across the desk.

"Is this what you want?"

Wynand's house stood drawn on the paper-with Colonial porches, a gambrel roof, two ma.s.sive chimneys, a few little pilasters, a few porthole windows. It was not a parody, it was a serious job of adaptation in what any professor would have called excellent taste.

"Good G.o.d, no!" The gasp was instinctive and immediate.

"Then shut up," said Roark, "and don't ever let me hear any architectural suggestions."

Wynand slumped down in his chair and laughed. He laughed for a long time, unable to stop. It was not a happy sound.

Roark shook his head wearily. "You knew better than that. And it's such an old one to me. My antisocial stubbornness is so well-known that I didn't think anyone would waste time trying to tempt me again."

"Howard. I meant it. Until I saw this."

"I knew you meant it. I didn't think you could be such a fool."

"You knew you were taking a terrible kind of chance?"

"None at all. I had an ally I could trust."

"What? Your integrity?"

"Yours, Gail."

Wynand sat looking down at the surface of his desk. After a while he said: "You're wrong about that."

"I don't think so."

Wynand lifted his head; he looked tired; he sounded indifferent.

"It was your method of the Stoddard trial again, wasn't it? 'The defense rests.' ... I wish I had been in the courtroom to hear that sentence.... You did throw the trial back at me again, didn't you?"

"Call it that."

"But this time, you won. I suppose you know I'm not glad that you won."

"I know you're not."

"Don't think it was one of those temptations when you tempt just to test your victim and are happy to be beaten, and smile and say, well, at last, here's the kind of man I want. Don't imagine that. Don't make that excuse for me."

"I'm not. I know what you wanted."

"I wouldn't have lost so easily before. This would have been only the beginning. I know I can try further. I don't want to try. Not because you'd probably hold out to the end. But because I wouldn't hold out. No, I'm not glad and I'm not grateful to you for this.... But it doesn't matter...."

"Gail, how much lying to yourself are you actually capable of?"

"I'm not lying. Everything I just told you is true. I thought you understood it."

"Everything you just told me-yes. I wasn't thinking of that."

"You're wrong in what you're thinking. You're wrong in remaining here."

"Do you wish to throw me out?"

"You know I can't."

Wynand's glance moved from Roark to the drawing of the house lying face down on his desk. He hesitated for a moment, looking at the blank cardboard, then turned it over. He asked softly: "Shall I tell you now what I think of this?"

"You've told me."

"Howard, you spoke about a house as a statement of my life. Do you think my life deserves a statement like this?"

"Yes."

"Is this your honest judgment?"

"My honest judgment, Gail. My most sincere one. My final one. No matter what might happen between us in the future."

Wynand put the drawing down and sat studying the plans for a long time. When he raised his head, he looked calm and normal.

"Why did you stay away from here?" he asked.

"You were busy with private detectives."

Wynand laughed. "Oh that? I couldn't resist my old bad habits and I was curious. Now I know everything about you-except the women in your life. Either you've been very discreet or there haven't been many. No information available on that anywhere."

"There haven't been many."

"I think I missed you. It was a kind of subst.i.tute-gathering the details of your past. Why did you actually stay away?"

"You told me to."

"Are you always so meek about taking orders?"

"When I find it advisable."

"Well, here's an order-hope you place it among the advisable ones: come to have dinner with us tonight. I'll take this drawing home to show my wife. I've told her nothing about the house so far."

"You haven't told her?"

"No. I want her to see this. And I want you to meet her. I know she hasn't been kind to you in the past-I read what she wrote about you. But it's so long ago. I hope it doesn't matter now."

"No, it doesn't matter."

"Then will you come?"

"Yes."

IV

DOMINIQUE STOOD AT THE GLa.s.s DOOR OF HER ROOM. WYNAND saw the starlight on the ice sheets of the roof garden outside. He saw its reflection touching the outline of her profile, a faint radiance on her eyelids, on the planes of her cheeks. He thought that this was the illumination proper to her face. She turned to him slowly, and the light became an edge around the pale straight ma.s.s of her hair. She smiled as she had always smiled at him, a quiet greeting of understanding.

"What's the matter, Gail?"

"Good evening, dear. Why?"

"You look happy. That's not the word. But it's the nearest."

" 'Light' is nearer. I feel light, thirty years lighter. Not that I'd want to be what I was thirty years ago. One never does. What the feeling means is only a sense of being carried back intact, as one is now, back to the beginning. It's quite illogical and impossible and wonderful."

"What the feeling usually means is that you've met someone. A woman as a rule."

"I have. Not a woman. A man. Dominique, you're very beautiful tonight. But I always say that. It's not what I wanted to say. It's this: I am very happy tonight that you're so beautiful."

"What is it, Gail?"

"Nothing. Only a feeling of how much is unimportant and how easy it is to live."

He took her hand and held it to his lips.

"Dominique, I've never stopped thinking it's a miracle that our marriage has lasted. Now I believe that it won't be broken. By anything or anyone." She leaned back against the gla.s.s pane. "I have a present for you-don't remind me it's the sentence I use more often than any other. I will have a present for you by the end of this summer. Our house."

"The house? You haven't spoken of it for so long, I thought you had forgotten."

"I've thought of nothing else for the last six months. You haven't changed your mind? You do want to move out of the city?"

"Yes, Gail, if you want it so much. Have you decided on an architect?"

"I've done more than that. I have the drawing of the house to show you."

"Oh, I'd like to see it."

"It's in my study. Come on. I want you to see it."

She smiled and closed her fingers over his wrist, a brief pressure, like a caress of encouragement, then she followed him. He threw the door of his study open and let her enter first. The light was on and the drawing stood propped on his desk, facing the door.

She stopped, her hands behind her, palms flattened against the doorjamb. She was too far away to see the signature, but she knew the work and the only man who could have designed that house.

Her shoulders moved, describing a circle, twisting slowly, as if she were tied to a pole, had abandoned hope of escape, and only her body made a last, instinctive gesture of protest.

She thought, were she lying in bed in Roark's arms in the sight of Gail Wynand, the violation would be less terrible; this drawing, more personal than Roark's body, created in answer to a matching force that came from Gail Wynand, was a violation of her, of Roark, of Wynand -and yet, she knew suddenly that it was the inevitable.

"No," she whispered, "things like that are never a coincidence."

"What?"

But she held up her hand, softly pus.h.i.+ng back all conversation, and she walked to the drawing, her steps soundless on the carpet. She saw the sharp signature in the corner-"Howard Roark." It was less terrifying than the shape of the house; it was a thin point of support, almost a greeting.

"Dominique?"

She turned her face to him. He saw her answer. He said: "I knew you'd like it. Forgive the inadequacy. We're stuck for words tonight."

She walked to the davenport and sat down; she let her back press against the cus.h.i.+ons; it helped to sit straight. She kept her eyes on Wynand. He stood before her, leaning on the mantelpiece, half turned away, looking at the drawing. She could not escape that drawing; Wynand's face was like a mirror of it.

"You've seen him, Gail?"

"Whom?"

"The architect."

"Of course I've seen him. Not an hour ago."

"When did you first meet him?"

"Last month."

"You knew him all this time? ... Every evening ... when you came home ... at the dinner table ..."