She listened, her arms about his neck. And then he saw her looking suddenly past him, her mouth opened in consternation; she jumped up, dashed across the room, and crawled on her hands and knees to reach a lavender envelope lying under a desk.
“Now what on earth?” he demanded angrily.
“It’s a very important letter,” she said, still kneeling, the envelope held tightly in her little fist, “it’s a very important letter and there it was, practically in the wastebasket, I might have swept it out without noticing. It’s from a poor widow who has five children and her eldest son wants to be an architect and Uncle Ellsworth is going to arrange a scholarship for him.”
“Well,” said Keating, rising, “I’ve had just about enough of this. Let’s get out of here, Katie. Let’s go for a walk. It’s beautiful out tonight. You don’t seem to belong to yourself in here.”
“Oh, fine! Let’s go for a walk.”
Outside, there was a mist of snow, a dry, fine, weightless snow that hung still in the air, filling the narrow tanks of streets. They walked together, Catherine’s arm pressed to his, their feet leaving long brown smears on the white sidewalks.
They sat down on a bench in Washington Square. The snow enclosed the Square, cutting them off from the houses, from the city beyond. Through the shadow of the arch, little dots of light rolled past them, steel-white, green and smeared red.
She sat huddled close to him. He looked at the city. He had always been afraid of it and he was afraid of it now; but he had two fragile protections: the snow and the girl beside him. “Katie,” he whispered, “Katie…”
“I love you, Peter….”
“Katie,” he said, without hesitation, without emphasis, because the certainty of his words allowed no excitement, “we’re engaged, aren’t we?”
He saw her chin move faintly as it dropped and rose to form one word.
“Yes,” she said calmly, so solemnly that the word sounded indifferent.
She had never allowed herself to question the future, for a question would have been an admission of doubt. But she knew, when she pronounced the “yes,” that she had waited for this and that she would shatter it if she were too happy.
“In a year or two,” he said holding her hand tightly, “we’ll be married. Just as soon as I’m on my feet and set with the firm for good. I have mother to take care of, but in another year it will be all right.” He tried to speak as coldly, as practically as he could, not to spoil the wonder of what he felt. “I’ll wait, Peter,” she whispered. “We don’t have to hurry.”
“We won’t tell anyone, Katie….It’s our secret, just ours until…” And suddenly a thought came to him, and he realized, aghast, that he could not prove it had never occurred to him before; yet he knew, in complete honesty, even though it did astonish him, that he had never thought of this before. He pushed her aside. He said angrily: “Katie! You won’t think that it’s because of that great, damnable uncle of yours?”
She laughed; the sound was light and unconcerned, and he knew that he was vindicated.
“Lord, no, Peter! He won’t like it, of course, but what do we care?”
“He won’t like it? Why?”
“Oh, I don’t think he approves of marriage. Not that he preaches anything immoral, but he’s always told me marriage is old-fashioned, an economic device to perpetuate the institution of private property, or something like that or anyway that he doesn’t like it.”
“Well, that’s wonderful! We’ll show him.”
In all sincerity, he was glad of it. It removed, not from his mind which he knew to be innocent, but from all other minds where it could occur, the suspicion that there had been in his feeling for her any hint of such considerations as applied to…to Francon’s daughter, for instance. He thought it was strange that this should seem so important; that he should wish so desperately to keep his feeling for her free from ties to all other people.
He let his head fall back, he felt the bite of snowflakes on his lips. Then he turned and kissed her. The touch of her mouth was soft and cold with the snow.
Her hat had slipped to one side, her lips were half open, her eyes round, helpless, her lashes glistening. He held her hand, palm up, and looked at it: she wore a black woolen glove and her fingers were spread out clumsily like a child’s; he saw beads of melted snow in the fuzz of the glove; they sparkled radiantly once in the light of a car flashing past.
7.
THE BULLETIN of the Architects’ Guild of America carried, in its Miscellaneous Department, a short item announcing Henry Cameron’s retirement. Six lines summarized his achievements in architecture and misspelled the names of his two best buildings.
Peter Keating walked into Francon’s office and interrupted Francon’s well-bred bargaining with an antique dealer over a snuffbox that had belonged to Madame Pompadour. Francon was precipitated into paying nine dollars and twenty-five cents more than he had intended to pay. He turned to Keating testily, after the dealer had left, and asked:
“Well, what is it, Peter, what is it?”
Keating threw the bulletin down on Francon’s desk, his thumbnail underscoring the paragraph about Cameron.
“I’ve got to have that man,” said Keating.
“What man?”
“Howard Roark.”
“Who the hell,” asked Francon, “is Howard Roark?”
“I’ve told you about him. Cameron’s designer.”
“Oh…oh, yes, I believe you did. Well, go and get him.”
“Do you give me a free hand on how I hire him?”
“What the hell? What is there about hiring another draftsman? Incidentally, did you have to interrupt me for that?”
“He might be difficult. And I want to get him before he decides on anyone else.”
“Really? He’s going to be difficult about it, is he? Do you intend to beg him to come here after Cameron’s? Which is not great recommendation for a young man anyway.”
“Come on, Guy. Isn’t it?”
“Oh well…well, speaking structurally, not esthetically, Cameron does give them a thorough grounding and…Of course, Cameron was pretty important in his day. As a matter of fact, I was one of his best draftsmen myself once, long ago. There’s something to be said for old Cameron when you need that sort of thing. Go ahead. Get your Roark if you think you need him.”
“It’s not that I really need him. But he’s an old friend of mine, and out of a job, and I thought it would be a nice thing to do for him.”
“Well, do anything you wish. Only don’t bother me about it….Say, Peter, don’t you think this is as lovely a snuffbox as you’ve ever seen?”
That evening, Keating climbed, unannounced, to Roark’s room and knocked, nervously, and entered cheerfully. He found Roark sitting on the window sill, smoking.
“Just passing by,” said Keating, “with an evening to kill and happened to think that that’s where you live, Howard, and thought I’d drop in to say hello, haven’t seen you for such a long time.”
“I know what you want,” said Roark. “All right. How much?”
“What do you mean, Howard?”
“You know what I mean.”
“Sixty-five a week,” Keating blurted out. This was not the elaborate approach he had prepared, but he had not expected to find that no approach would be necessary. “Sixty-five to start with. If you think it’s not enough, I could maybe…”
“Sixty-five will do.”
“You…you’ll come with us, Howard?”
“When do you want me to start?”
“Why…as soon as you can! Monday?”
“ALL right.”
“Thanks, Howard!”
“On one condition,” said Roark. “I’m not going to do any designing. Not any. No details. No Louis XV skyscrapers. Just keep me off esthetics if you want to keep me at all. Put me in the engineering department. Send me on inspections, out in the field. Now, do you still want me?”
“Certainly. Anything you say. You’ll like the place, just wait and see. You’ll like Francon. He’s one of Cameron’s men himself.”
“He shouldn’t boast about it.”
“Well…”
“No. Don’t worry. I won’t say it to his face. I won’t say anything to anyone. Is that what you wanted to know?”
“Why, no, I wasn’t worried, I wasn’t even thinking of that.”
“Then it’s settled. Good night. See you Monday.”
“Well, yes…but I’m in no special hurry, really I came to see you and…”
“What’s the matter, Peter? Something bothering you?”
“No…I…”
“You want to know why I’m doing it?” Roark smiled, without resentment or interest. “Is that it? I’ll tell you, if you want to know. I don’t give a damn where I work next. There’s no architect in town that I’d want to work for. But I have to work somewhere, so it might as well be your Francon–if I can get what I want from you. I’m selling myself, and I’ll play the game that way–for the time being.”