“The Nordland, John.”
In the lobby of the hotel, he said to her:
“I will see you a week from today, Tuesday, at the Noyes-Belmont, at four o’clock in the afternoon. The invitations will have to be in the name of your father. Let him know that I’ll get in touch with him. I’ll attend to the rest.”
He bowed, his manner unchanged, his calm still holding the same peculiar quality made of two things: the mature control of a man so certain of his capacity for control that it could seem casual, and a childlike simplicity of accepting events as if they were subject to no possible change.
She did not see him during that week. She found herself waiting impatiently.
She saw him again when she stood beside him, facing a judge who pronounced the words of the marriage ceremony over the silence of six hundred people in the floodlighted ballroom of the Noyes-Belmont Hotel.
The background she had wished was set so perfectly that it became its own caricature, not a specific society wedding, but an impersonal prototype of lavish, exquisite vulgarity. He had understood her wish and obeyed scrupulously; he had refused himself the relief of exaggeration, he had not staged the event crudely, but made it beautiful in the exact manner Gail Wynand, the publisher, would have chosen had he wished to be married in public. But Gail Wynand did not wish to be married in public.
He made himself fit the setting, as if he were part of the bargain, subject to the same style. When he entered, she saw him looking at the mob of guests as if he did not realize that such a mob was appropriate to a Grand Opera premiere or a royal rummage sale, not to the solemn climax of his life. He looked correct, incomparably distinguished.
Then she stood with him, the mob becoming a heavy silence and a gluttonous stare behind him, and they faced the judge together. She wore a long, black dress with a bouquet of fresh jasmine, his present, attached by a black band to her wrist. Her face in the halo of a black lace hat was raised to the judge who spoke slowly, letting his words hang one by one in the air.
She glanced at Wynand. He was not looking at her nor at the judge. Then she saw that he was alone in that room. He held this moment and he made of it, of the glare, of the vulgarity, a silent height of his own. He had not wished a religious ceremony, which he did not respect, and he could have less respect for the state’s functionary reciting a formula before him–but he made the rite an act of pure religion. She thought, if she were being married to Roark in such a setting, Roark would stand like this.
Afterward, the mockery of the monster reception that followed left him immune. He posed with her for the battery of press cameras and he complied gracefully with all the demands of the reporters, a special, noisier mob within the mob. He stood with her in the receiving line, shaking an assembly belt of hands that unrolled past them for hours. He looked untouched by the lights, the haystacks of Easter lilies, the sounds of a string orchestra, the river of people flowing on and breaking into a delta when it reached the champagne; untouched by these guests who had come here driven by boredom, by an envious hatred, a reluctant submission to an invitation bearing his dangerous name, a scandal-hungry curiosity. He looked as if he did not know that they took his public immolation as their rightful due, that they considered their presence as the indispensable seal of sacrament upon the occasion, that of all the hundreds he and his bride were the only ones to whom the performance was hideous.
She watched him intently. She wanted to see him take pleasure in all this, if only for a moment. Let him accept and join, just once, she thought, let him show the soul of the New York Banner in its proper element. She saw no acceptance. She saw a hint of pain, at times; but even the pain did not reach him completely. And she thought of the only other man she knew who had spoken about suffering that went down only to a certain point.
When the last congratulations had drifted past them, they were free to leave by the rules of the occasion. But he made no move to leave. She knew he was waiting for her decision. She walked away from him into the currents of guests; she smiled, bowed and listened to offensive nonsense, a glass of champagne in her hand.
She saw her father in the throng. He looked proud and wistful; he seemed bewildered. He had taken the announcement of her marriage quietly; he had said: “I want you to be happy, Dominique. I want it very much. I hope he’s the right man.” His tone had said that he was not certain.
She saw Ellsworth Toohey in the crowd. He noticed her looking at him and turned away quickly. She wanted to laugh aloud; but the matter of Ellsworth Toohey caught off guard did not seem important enough to laugh about now.
Alvah Scarret pushed his way toward her. He was making a poor effort at a suitable expression, but his face looked hurt and sullen. He muttered something rapid about his wishes for her happiness, but then he said distinctly and with a lively anger:
“But why, Dominique? Why?”
She could not quite believe that Alvah Scarret would permit himself the crudeness of what the question seemed to mean. She asked coldly:
“What are you talking about, Alvah?”
“The veto, of course.”
“What veto?”
“You know very well what veto. Now I ask you, with every sheet in the city here, every damn one of them, the lousiest tabloid included, and the wire services too–everything but the Banner! Everything but the Wynand papers! What am I to tell people? How am I to explain? Is that a thing for you to do to a former comrade of the trade?”
“You’d better repeat that, Alvah.”
“You mean you didn’t know that Gail wouldn’t allow a single one of our guys here? That we won’t have any stories tomorrow, not a spread, not a picture, nothing but two lines on page eighteen?”
“No,” she said, “I didn’t know it.”
He wondered at the sudden jerk of her movement as she turned away from him. She handed the champagne glass to the first stranger in sight, whom she mistook for a waiter. She made her way through the crowd to Wynand.
“Let’s go, Gail.”
“Yes, my dear.”
She stood, incredulously, in the middle of the drawing room of his penthouse, thinking that this place was now her home and how right it looked to be her home.
He watched her. He showed no desire to speak or touch her, only to observe her here, in his house, brought here, lifted high over the city; as if the significance of the moment were not to be shared, not even with her.
She moved slowly across the room, took off her hat, leaned against the edge of a table. She wondered why her normal desire to say little, to hold things closed, broke down before him, why she felt compelled to simple frankness, such as she could offer no one else.
“You’ve had your way after all, Gail. You were married as you wanted to be married.”
“Yes, I think so.”
“It was useless to try to torture you.”
“Actually, yes. But I didn’t mind it too much.”
“You didn’t?”
“No. If that’s what you wanted it was only a matter of keeping my promise.”
“But you hated it, Gail.”
“Utterly. What of it? Only the first moment was hard–when you said it in the car. Afterward, I was rather glad of it.” He spoke quietly, matching her frankness; she knew he would leave her the choice–he would follow her manner–he would keep silent or admit anything she wished to be admitted.
“Why?”
“Didn’t you notice your own mistake–if it was a mistake? You wouldn’t have wanted to make me suffer if you were completely indifferent to me.”
“No. It was not a mistake.”
“You’re a good loser, Dominique.”
“I think that’s also contagion from you, Gail. And there’s something I want to thank you for.”
“What?”
“That you barred our wedding from the Wynand papers.” He looked at her, his eyes alert in a special way for a moment, then he smiled.
“It’s out of character–your thanking me for that.”
“It was out of character for you to do it.”
“I had to. But I thought you’d be angry.”
“I should have been. But I wasn’t. I’m not. I thank you.”
“Can one feel gratitude for gratitude? It’s a little hard to express, but that’s what I feel, Dominique.”