"You really think so?"
"Why, yes." She was not flattering him. She did not seem to realize that it could be flattery. She was merely stating a fact, too certain to need emphasis.
He waited for the inevitable questions. But instead, they were talking suddenly of their old Stanton days together, and he was laughing, holding her across his knees, her thin shoulders leaning against the circle of his arm, her eyes soft, contented. He was speaking of their old bathing suits, of the runs in her stockings, of their favorite ice-cream parlor in Stanton, where they had spent so many summer evenings together--and he was thinking dimly that it made no sense at all; he had more pertinent things to tell and to ask her; people did not talk like that when they hadn't seen each other for months. But it seemed quite normal to her; she did not appear to know that they had been parted.
He was first to ask finally:
"Did you get my wire?"
"Oh, yes. Thanks."
"Don't you want to know how I'm getting along in the city?"
"Sure. How are you getting along in the city?"
"Look here, you're not terribly interested."
"Oh, but I am! I want to know everything about you."
"Why don't you ask?"
"You'll tell me when you want to."
"It doesn't matter much to you, does it?"
"What?"
"What I've been doing."
"Oh ... Yes, it does, Peter. No, not too much."
"That's sweet of you!"
"But, you see, it's not what you do that matters really. It's only you."
"Me what?"
"Just you here. Or you in the city. Or you somewhere in the world. I don't know. Just that."
"You know, you're a fool, Katie. Your technique is something awful."
"My what?"
"Your technique. You can't tell a man so shamelessly, like that, that you're practically crazy about him."
"But I am."
"But you can't say so. Men won't care for you."
"But I don't want men to care for me."
"You want me to, don't you?"
"But you do, don't you?"
"I do," he said, his arms tightening about her. "Damnably. I'm a bigger fool than you are."
"Well, then it's perfectly all right," she said, her fingers in his hair, "isn't it?"
"It's always been perfectly all right, that's the strangest part about it. ... But look, I want to tell you about what's happened to me, because it's important."
"I'm really very interested, Peter."
"Well, you know I'm working for Francon & Heyer and ... Oh, hell, you don't even know what that means!"
"Yes, I do. I've looked them up in Who's Who in Architecture. It said some very nice things about them. And I asked Uncle. He said they were tops in the business."
"You bet they are. Francon--he's the greatest designer in New York, in the whole country, in the world maybe. He's put up seventeen skyscrapers, eight cathedrals, six railroad terminals and God knows what else.... Of course, you know, he's an old fool and a pompous fraud who oils his way into everything and ..."
He stopped, his mouth open, staring at her. He had not intended to say that. He had never allowed himself to think that before.
She was looking at him serenely.
"Yes?" she asked. "And ... ?"
"Well ... and ..." he stammered, and he knew that he could not speak differently, not to her, "and that's what I really think of him. And I have no respect for him at all. And I'm delighted to be working for him. See?"
"Sure," she said quietly. "You're ambitious, Peter."
"Don't you despise me for it?"
"No. That's what you wanted."
"Sure, that's what I wanted. Well, actually, it's not as bad as that. It's a tremendous firm, the best in the city. I'm really doing work, and Francon is very pleased with me. I'm getting ahead. I think I can have any job I want in the place eventually.... Why, only tonight I took over a man's work and he doesn't know that he'll be useless soon, because ... Katie! What am I saying?"
"It's all right, dear. I understand."
"If you did, you'd call me the names I deserve and make me stop it."
"No, Peter. I don't want to change you. I love you, Peter."
"God help you!"
"I know that."
"You know that? And you say it like this? Like you'd say, 'Hello, it's a beautiful evening'?"
"Well, why not? Why worry about it? I love you."
"No, don't worry about it! Don't ever worry about it! ... Katie.... I'll never love anyone else...."
"I know that too."
He held her close, anxiously, afraid that her weightless little body would vanish. He did not know why her presence made him confess things unconfessed in his own mind. He did not know why the victory he came here to share had faded. But it did not matter. He had a peculiar sense of freedom--her presence always lifted from him a pressure he could not denne--he was alone--he was himself. All that mattered to him now was the feeling of her coarse cotton blouse against his wrist.
Then he was asking her about her own life in New York and she was speaking happily about her uncle.
"He's wonderful, Peter. He's really wonderful. He's quite poor, but he took me in and he was so gracious about it, he gave up his study to make a room for me and now he has to work here, in the living room. You must meet him, Peter. He's away now, on a lecture tour, but you must meet him when he comes back."
"Sure, I'd love to."
"You know, I wanted to go to work and be on my own, but he wouldn't let me. 'My dear child,' he said, 'not at seventeen. You don't want me to be ashamed of myself, do you? I don't believe in child labor.' That was kind of a funny idea, don't you think? He has so many funny ideas--I don't understand them all, but they say he's a brilliant man. So he made it look as if I were doing him a favor by letting him keep me, and I think that was really very decent of him."
"What do you do with yourself all day long?"
"Nothing much of anything now. I read books. On architecture. Uncle has tons of books on architecture. But when he's here I type his lectures for him. I really don't think he likes me to do it, he prefers the typist he had, but I love it and he lets me. And he pays me her salary. I didn't want to take it, but he made me."
"What does he do for a living?"
"Oh, so many things, I don't know, I can't keep track of them. He teaches art history, for one thing, he's a kind of professor."
"And when are you going to college, by the way?"
"Oh ... Well ... well, you see, I don't think Uncle approves of the idea. I told him how I'd always planned to go and that I'd work my own way through, but he seems to think it's not for me. He doesn't say much, only: 'God made the elephant for toil and the mosquito for flitting about, and it's not advisable, as a rule, to experiment with the laws of nature, however, if you want to try it, my dear child ...' But he's not objecting really, it's up to me, only ..."
"Well, don't let him stop you."
"Oh, he wouldn't want to stop me. Only, I was thinking, I was never any great shakes in high school, and, darling, I'm really quite utterly lousy at mathematics, and so I wonder ... But then, there's no hurry, I've got plenty of time to decide."
"Listen, Katie, I don't like that. You've always planned on college. If that uncle of yours ..."
"You shouldn't say it like this. You don't know him. He's the most amazing man. I've never met anyone quite like him. He's so kind, so understanding. And he's such fun, always joking, he's so clever at it, nothing that you thought was serious ever seems to be when he's around, and yet he's a very serious man. You know, he spends hours talking to me, he's never too tired and he's not bored with my stupidity, he tells me all about strikes, and conditions in the slums, and the poor people in sweatshops, always about others, never about himself. A friend of his told me that Uncle could be a very rich man if he tried, he's so clever, but he won't, he just isn't interested in money."
"That's not hu
man."
"Wait till you see him. Oh, he wants to meet you, too. I've told him about you. He calls you 'the T-square Romeo.' "
"Oh, he does, does he?"
"But you don't understand. He means it kindly. It's the way he says things. You'll have a lot in common. Maybe he could help you. He knows something about architecture, too. You'll love Uncle Ellsworth."
"Who?" said Keating.
"My uncle."
"Say," Keating asked, his voice a little husky, "what's your uncle's name?"
"Ellsworth Toohey. Why?"
His hands fell limply. He sat staring at her.
"What's the matter, Peter?"
He swallowed. She saw the jerking motion of his throat. Then he said, his voice hard:
"Listen, Katie, I don't want to meet your uncle."
"But why?"
"I don't want to meet him. Not through you.... You see, Katie, you don't know me. I'm the kind that uses people. I don't want to use you. Ever. Don't let me. Not you."
"Use me how? What's the matter? Why?"
"It's just this: I'd give my eyeteeth to meet Ellsworth Toohey, that's all." He laughed harshly. "So he knows something about architecture, does he? You little fool! He's the most important man in architecture. Not yet, maybe, but that's what he'll be in a couple of years--ask Francon, that old weasel knows. He's on his way to becoming the Napoleon of all architectural critics, your Uncle Ellsworth is, just watch him. In the first place, there aren't many to bother writing about our profession, so he's the smart boy who's going to corner the market. You should see the big shots in our office lapping up every comma he puts out in print! So you think maybe he could help me? Well, he could make me, and he will, and I'm going to meet him some day, when I'm ready for him, as I met Francon, but not here, not through you. Understand? Not from you!"
"But, Peter, why not?"
"Because I don't want it that way! Because it's filthy and I hate it, all of it, my work and my profession, and what I'm doing and what I'm going to do! It's something I want to keep you out of. You're all I really have. Just keep out of it, Katie!"
"Out of what?"
"I don't know!"
She rose and stood in the circle of his arms, his face hidden against her hip; she stroked his hair, looking down at him.
"All right, Peter. I think I know. You don't have to meet him until you want to. Just tell me when you want it. You can use me, if you have to. It's all right. It won't change anything."
When he raised his head, she was laughing softly.
"You've worked too hard, Peter. You're a little unstrung. Suppose I make you some tea?"
"Oh, I'd forgotten all about it, but I've had no dinner today. Had no time."
"Well, of all things! Well, how perfectly disgusting! Come on to the kitchen, this minute, I'll see what I can fix up for you!"
He left her two hours later, and he walked away feeling light, clean, happy, his fears forgotten, Toohey and Francon forgotten. He thought only that he had promised to come again tomorrow and that it was an unbearably long time to wait. She stood at the door, after he had gone, her hand on the knob he had touched, and she thought that he might come tomorrow--or three months later.
"When you finish tonight," said Henry Cameron, "I want to see you in my office."
"Yes," said Roark.
Cameron veered sharply on his heels and walked out of the drafting room. It had been the longest sentence he had addressed to Roark in a month.
Roark had come to this room every morning, had done his task, and had heard no word of comment. Cameron would enter the drafting room and stand behind Roark for a long time, looking over his shoulder. It was as if his eyes concentrated deliberately on trying to throw the steady hand off its course on the paper. The two other draftsmen botched their work from the mere thought of such an apparition standing behind them. Roark did not seem to notice it. He went on, his hand unhurried, he took his time about discarding a blunted pencil and picking out another. "Uh-huh," Cameron would grunt suddenly. Roark would turn his head then, politely attentive. "What is it?" he would ask. Cameron would turn away without a word, his narrowed eyes underscoring contemptuously the fact that he considered an answer unnecessary, and would leave the drafting room. Roark would go on with his drawing.
"Looks bad," Loomis, the young draftsman, confided to Simpson, his ancient colleague. "The old man doesn't like this guy. Can't say that I blame him, either. Here's one that won't last long."
Simpson was old and helpless; he had survived from Cameron's three-floor office, had stuck and had never understood it. Loomis was young, with the face of a drugstore-corner lout; he was here because he had been fired from too many other places.
Both men disliked Roark. He was usually disliked, from the first sight of his face, anywhere he went. His face was closed like the door of a safety vault; things locked in safety vaults are valuable; men did not care to feel that. He was a cold, disquieting presence in the room; his presence had a strange quality: it made itself felt and yet it made them feel that he was not there; or perhaps that he was and they weren't.
After work he walked the long distance to his home, a tenement near the East River. He had chosen that tenement because he had been able to get, for two-fifty a week, its entire top floor, a huge room that had been used for storage: it had no ceiling and the roof leaked between its naked beams. But it had a long row of windows, along two of its walls, some panes filled with glass, others with cardboard, and the windows opened high over the river on one side and the city on the other.
A week ago Cameron had come into the drafting room and had thrown down on Roark's table a violent sketch of a country residence. "See if you can make a house out of this!" he had snapped and gone without further explanation. He had not approached Roark's table during the days that followed. Roark had finished the drawings last night and left them on Cameron's desk. This morning, Cameron had come in, thrown some sketches of steel joints to Roark, ordered him to appear in his office later and had not entered the drafting room again for the rest of the day.
The others were gone. Roark pulled an old piece of oil cloth over his table and went to Cameron's office. His drawings of the country house were spread on the desk. The light of the lamp fell on Cameron's cheek, on his beard, the white threads glistening, on his fist, on a corner of the drawing, its black lines bright and hard as if embossed on the paper.
"You're fired," said Cameron.
Roark stood, halfway across the long room, his weight on one leg, his arms hanging by his sides, one shoulder raised.
"Am I?" he asked quietly, without moving.
"Come here," said Cameron. "Sit down."
Roark obeyed.
"You're too good," said Cameron. "You're too good for what you want to do with yourself. It's no use, Roark. Better now than later."
"What do you mean?"
"It's no use wasting what you've got on an ideal that you'll never reach, that they'll never let you reach. It's no use, taking that marvelous thing you have and making a torture rack for yourself out of it. Sell it, Roark. Sell it now. It won't be the same, but you've got enough in you. You've got what they'll pay you for, and pay plenty, if you use it their way. Accept them, Roark. Compromise. Compromise now, because you'll have to later, anyway, only then you'll have gone through things you'll wish you hadn't. You don't know. I do. Save yourself from that. Leave me. Go to someone else."
"Did you do that?"
"You presumptuous bastard! How good do you think I said you were? Did I tell you to compare yourself to ..." He stopped because he saw that Roark was smiling.
He looked at Roark, and suddenly smiled in answer, and it was the most painful thing that Roark had ever seen.
"No," said Cameron softly, "that won't work, huh? No, it won't ... Well, you're right. You're as good as you think you are. But I want to speak to you. I don't know exactly how to go about it. I've lost the habit of speaking to men like you. Lost it? Maybe I've never had it. Maybe that's what
frightens me now. Will you try to understand?"
"I understand. I think you're wasting your time."
"Don't be rude. Because I can't be rude to you now. I want you to listen. Will you listen and not answer me?"
"Yes. I'm sorry. I didn't intend it as rudeness."
"You see, of all men, I'm the last one to whom you should have come. I'll be committing a crime if I keep you here. Somebody should have warned you against me. I won't help you at all. I won't discourage you. I won't teach you any common sense. Instead, I'll push you on. I'll drive you the way you're going now. I'll beat you into remaining what you are, and I'll make you worse.... Don't you see? In another month I won't be able to let you go. I'm not sure I can now. So don't argue with me and go. Get out while you can."
"But can I? Don't you think it's too late for both of us? It was too late for me twelve years ago."
"Try it, Roark. Try to be reasonable for once. There's plenty of big fellows who'll take you, expulsion or no expulsion, if I say so. They may laugh at me in their luncheon speeches, but they steal from me when it suits them, and they know that I know a good draftsman when I see one. I'll give you a letter to Guy Francon. He worked for me once, long ago. I think I fired him, but that wouldn't matter. Go to him. You won't like it at first, but you'll get used to it. And you'll thank me for it many years from now."
"Why are you saying all this to me? That's not what you want to say. That's not what you did."
"That's why I'm saying it! Because that's not what I did! ... Look, Roark, there's one thing about you, the thing I'm afraid of. It's not just the kind of work you do; I wouldn't care, if you were an exhibitionist who's being different as a stunt, as a lark, just to attract attention to himself. It's a smart racket, to oppose the crowd and amuse it and collect admission to the side show. If you did that, I wouldn't worry. But it's not that. You love your work. God help you, you love it! And that's the curse. That's the brand on your forehead for all of them to see. You love it, and they know it, and they know they have you. Do you ever look at the people in the street? Aren't you afraid of them? I am. They move past you and they wear hats and they carry bundles. But that's not the substance of them. The substance of them is hatred for any man who loves his work. That's the only kind they fear. I don't know why. You're opening yourself up, Roark, for each and every one of them."