Wynand saw Roark’s hand lying on the edge of his desk, the long fingers pressed to the glass, next to the proofs of the Banner. The proofs were folded carelessly; he saw the heading “One Small Voice” inside the page. He looked at Roark’s hand. He thought he would like to have a bronze paperweight made of it and how beautiful it would look on his desk.
“Now you know what I want. Go ahead. Start at once. Drop anything else you’re doing. I’ll pay whatever you wish. I want that house by summer….Oh, forgive me. Too much association with bad architects. I haven’t asked whether you want to do it.”
Roark’s hand moved first; he took it off the desk.
“Yes,” said Roark. “I’ll do it.”
Wynand saw the prints of the fingers left on the glass, distinct as if the skin had cut grooves in the surface and the grooves were
wet.
“How long will it take you?” Wynand asked.
“You’ll have it by July.”
“Of course you must see the site. I want to show it to you myself. Shall I drive you down there tomorrow morning?”
“If you wish.”
“Be here at nine.”
“Yes.”
“Do you want me to draw up a contract? I have no idea how you prefer to work. As a rule, before I deal with a man in any matter, I make it a point to know everything about him from the day of his birth or earlier. I’ve never checked up on you. I simply forgot. It didn’t seem necessary.”
“I can answer any question you wish.”
Wynand smiled and shook his head:
“No. There’s nothing I need to ask you. Except about the business arrangements.”
“I never make any conditions, except one: if you accept the preliminary drawings of the house, it is to be built as I designed it, without any alterations of any kind.”
“Certainly. That’s understood. I’ve heard you don’t work otherwise. But will you mind if I don’t give you any publicity on this house? I know it would help you professionally, but I want this building kept out of the newspapers.”
“I won’t mind that.”
“Will you promise not to release pictures of it for publication?”
“I promise.”
“Thank you. I’ll make up for it. You may consider the Wynand papers as your personal press service. I’ll give you all the plugging you wish on any other work of yours.”
“I don’t want any plugging.”
Wynand laughed aloud. “What a thing to say in what a place! I don’t think you have any idea how your fellow architects would have conducted this interview. I don’t believe you were actually conscious at any time that you were speaking to Gail Wynand.”
“I was,” said Roark.
“This was my way of thanking you. I don’t always like being Gail Wynand.”
“I know that.”
“I’m going to change my mind and ask you a personal question. You said you’d answer anything.”
“I will.”
“Have you always liked being Howard Roark?”
Roark smiled. The smile was amused, astonished, involuntarily contemptuous.
“You’ve answered,” said Wynand.
Then he rose and said: “Nine o’clock tomorrow morning,” extending his hand.
When Roark had gone, Wynand sat behind his desk, smiling. He moved his hand toward one of the plastic buttons–and stopped. He realized that he had to assume a different manner, his usual manner, that he could not speak as he had spoken in the last half-hour. Then he understood what had been strange about the interview: for the first time in his life he had spoken to a man without feeling the reluctance, the sense of pressure, the need of disguise he had always experienced when he spoke to people; there had been no strain and no need of strain; as if he had spoken to himself.
He pressed the button and said to his secretary:
“Tell the morgue to send me everything they have on Howard Roark.”
“Guess what,” said Alvah Scarret, his voice begging to be begged for his information.
Ellsworth Toohey waved a hand impatiently in a brushing-off motion, not raising his eyes from his desk.
“Go ‘way, Alvah. I’m busy.”
“No, but this is interesting, Ellsworth. Really, it’s interesting. I know you’ll want to know.”
Toohey lifted his head and looked at him, the faint contraction of boredom in the corners of his eyes letting Scarret understand that this moment of attention was a favor; he drawled in a tone of emphasized patience:
“All right. What is it?”
Scarret saw nothing to resent in Toohey’s manner. Toohey had treated him like that for the last year or longer. Scarret had not noticed the change, it was too late to resent it–it had become normal to them both.
Scarret smiled like a bright pupil who expects the teacher to praise him for discovering an error in the teacher’s own textbook.
“Ellsworth, your private F.B.I. is slipping.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Bet you don’t know what Gail’s been doing–and you always make such a point of keeping yourself informed.”
“What don’t I know?”
“Guess who was in his office today.”
“My dear Alvah, I have no time for quiz games.”
“You wouldn’t guess in a thousand years.”
“Very well, since the only way to get rid of you is to play the vaudeville stooge, I shall ask the proper question: Who was in dear Gail’s office today?”
“Howard Roark.”
Toohey turned to him full face, forgetting to dole out his attention, and said incredulously:
“No!”
“Yes!” said Scarret, proud of the effect.
“Well!” said Toohey and burst out laughing.
Scarret half smiled tentatively, puzzled, anxious to join in, but not quite certain of the cause for amusement.
“Yes, it’s funny. But…just exactly why, Ellsworth?”
“Oh, Alvah, it would take so long to tell you!”
“I had an idea it might…”
“Haven’t you any sense of the spectacular, Alvah? Don’t you like fireworks? If you want to know what to expect, just think that the worst wars are religious wars between sects of the same religion or civil wars between brothers of the same race.”
“I don’t quite follow you.”
“Oh, dear, I have so many followers. I brush them out of my hair.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re so cheerful about it, but I thought it’s
bad.”
“Of course it’s bad. But not for us.”
“But look: you know bow we’ve gone out on a limb, you particularly, on how this Roark is just about the worst architect in town, and if now our own boss hires him–isn’t it going to be embarrassing?”
“Oh that?…Oh, maybe…”
“Well, I’m glad you take it that way.”
“What was he doing in Wynand’s office? Is it a commission?”
“That’s what I don’t know. Can’t find out. Nobody knows.”
“Have you heard of Mr. Wynand planning to build anything lately?”
“No. Have you?”
“No. I guess my F.B.I. is slipping. Oh, well, one does the best one can.”
“But you know, Ellsworth, I had an idea. I had an idea where this might be very helpful to us indeed.”
“What idea?”
“Ellsworth, Gail’s been impossible lately.”
Scarret uttered it solemnly, with the air of imparting a discovery. Toohey sat half smiling.
“Well, of course, you predicted it, Ellsworth. You were right. You’re always right. I’ll be damned if I can figure out just what’s happening to him, whether it’s Dominique or some sort of a change of life or what, but something’s happening. Why does he get fits suddenly and start reading every damn line of every damn edition and raise hell for the silliest reasons? He’s killed three of my best editorials lately–and he’s never done that to me before. Never. You know what he said to me? He said: ‘Motherhood is wonderful, Alvah, but for God’s sake go easy on the bilge. There’s a limit even for intellectual depravity.’ What depravity? That was the sweetest Mother’s Day editorial I ever put together. Honest, I was touched myself. Since when has he learned to talk about depravity? The other day, he called Jules Fougler a bargain-basement mind, right to his face, and threw his Sunday piece into the wastebasket. A swell piece, too–on the Workers’ Theater. Jules Fougler, our best writer! No wonder Gail hasn’t got a friend left in the place. If they hated his guts before, you ought to hear them now!”
“I’ve heard them.”
“He’s losing his grip, Ellsworth. I don’t know what I’d do if it weren’t for you and the swell bunch of people you picked. They’re practically our whole actual working staff, those youngsters of yours, not our old sacred cows who’re writing themselves out anyway. Those bright kids will keep the Banner going. But Gail…Listen, last week he fired Dwight Carson. Now you know, I think that was significant. Of course Dwight was just a deadweight and a damn nuisance, but he was the first one of those special pets of Gail’s, the boys who sold their souls. So, in a way, you see, I liked having Dwight around, it was all right, it was healthy, it was a relic of Gail’s best days. I always said it was Gail’s safety valve. And when he suddenly let Carson go–I didn’t like it, Ellsworth. I didn’t like it at all.”