She lifted her two hands to her collar and unfastened the buttons of her jacket, simply, precisely, one after another. She threw the jacket down on the floor, she took off a thin white blouse, and she noticed the tight black gloves on the wrists of her naked arms. She took the gloves off, pulling at each finger in turn. She undressed indifferently, as if she were alone in her own bedroom.
Then she looked at him. She stood naked, waiting, feeling the space between them like a pressure against her stomach, knowing that it was torture for him also and that it was as they both wanted it. Then he got up, he walked to her, and when he held her, her arms rose willingly and she felt the shape of his body imprinted into the skin on the inside of her arm as it encircled him, his ribs, his armpit, his back, his shoulder blade under her fingers, her mouth on his, in a surrender more violent than her struggle had been.
Afterward, she lay in bed by his side, under his blanket, looking at his room, and she asked:
“Roark, why were you working in that quarry?”
“You know it.”
“Yes. Anyone else would have taken a job in an architect’s office.”
“And then you’d have no desire at all to destroy me.”
“You understand that?”
“Yes. Keep still. It doesn’t matter now.”
“Do you know that the Enright House is the most beautiful building in New York?”
“I know that you know it.”
“Roark, you worked in that quarry when you had the Enright House in you, and many other Enright Houses, and you were drilling granite like a…”
“You’re going to weaken in a moment, Dominique, and then you’ll regret it tomorrow.”
“Yes.”
“You’re very lovely, Dominique.”
“Don’t.”
“You’re lovely.”
“Roark, I…I’ll still want to destroy you.”
“Do you think I would want you if you didn’t?”
“Roark…”
“You want to hear that again? Part of it? I want you, Dominique. I want you. I want you.”
“I…” She stopped, the word on which she stopped almost audible in her breath.
“No,” he said. “Not yet. You won’t say that yet. Go to sleep.
“Here? With you?”
“Here. With me. I’ll fix breakfast for you in the morning. Did you know that I fix my own breakfast? You’ll like seeing that. Like the work in the quarry. Then you’ll go home and think about destroying me. Good night, Dominique.”
8.
THE BLINDS raised over the windows of her living room, the lights of the city rising to a black horizon halfway up the glass panes, Dominique sat at her desk, correcting the last sheets of an article, when she heard the doorbell. Guests did not disturb her without warning–and she looked up, the pencil held in midair, angry and curious. She heard the steps of the maid in the hall, then the maid came in, saying: “A gentleman to see you, madam,” a faint hostility in her voice explaining that the gentleman had refused to give his name.
A man with orange hair?–Dominique wanted to ask, but didn’t; the pencil jerked stiffly and she said: “Have him come
Then the door opened; against the light of the hall she saw a long neck and sloping shoulders, like the silhouette of a bottle; a rich, creamy voice said, “Good evening, Dominique,” and she recognized Ellsworth Toohey whom she had never asked to her house. ,
She smiled. She said: “Good evening, Ellsworth. I haven’t seen you for such a long time.”
“You should have expected me now, don’t you think so?” He turned to the maid: “Cointreau, please, if you have it, and I’m sure you do.”
The maid glanced at Dominique, wide-eyed; Dominique nodded silently, and the maid went out, closing the door.
“Busy, of course?” said Toohey, glancing at the littered desk. “Very becoming, Dominique. Gets results, too. You’ve been writing much better lately.”
She let the pencil fall, and threw an arm over the back of her chair, half turning to him, watching him placidly. “What do you want, Ellsworth?”
He did not sit down, but stood examining the place with the unhurried curiosity of an expert.
“Not bad, Dominique. Just about as I’d expect you to have it. A little cold. You know, I wouldn’t have that ice-blue chair over there. Too obvious. Fits in too well. Just what people would expect in just that spot. I’d have it carrot red. An ugly, glaring, outrageous red. Like Mr. Howard Roark’s hair. That’s quite en passant–merely a convenient figure of speech–nothing personal at all. Just one touch of the wrong color would make the whole room. The sort of thing that gives a place elegance. Your flower arrangements are nice. The pictures, too–not bad.”
“All right, Ellsworth, all right, what is it?”
“But don’t you know that I’ve never been here before? Somehow, you’ve never asked me. I don’t know why.” He sat down comfortably, resting an ankle on a knee, one thin leg stretched horizontally across the other, the full length of a tight, gunmetal sock exposed under the trouser cuff, and a patch of skin showing above the sock, bluish-white with a few black hairs. “But then, you’ve been so unsociable. The past tense, my dear, the past tense. Did you say that we haven’t seen each other for a long time? That’s true. You’ve been so busy–in such an unusual way. Visits, dinners, speakeasies and giving tea parties. Haven’t you?”
“I have.”
“Tea parties–I thought that was tops. This is a good room for parties–large–plenty of space to stuff people into–particularly if you’re not particular whom you stuff it with–and you’re not. Not now. What do you serve them? Anchovy paste and minced egg cut out like hearts?”
“Caviar and minced onion cut out like stars.”
“What about the old ladies?”
“Cream cheese and chopped walnuts–in spirals.”
“I’d like to have seen you taking care of things like that. It’s wonderful how thoughtful you’ve become of old ladies. Particularly the filthy rich–with sons-in-law in real estate. Though I don’t think that’s as bad as going to see Knock Me Flat with Commodore Higbee who has false teeth and a nice vacant lot on the corner of Broadway and Chambers.”
The maid came in with the tray. Toohey took a glass and held it delicately, inhaling, while the maid went out.
“Will you tell me why the secret service department–I won’t ask who–and why the detailed reports on ray activities?” Dominique said indifferently.
“You can ask who. Anyone and everyone. Don’t you suppose people are talking about Miss Dominique Francon in the role of a famous hostess–so suddenly? Miss Dominique Francon as a sort of second Kiki Holcombe, but much better–oh much!–much subtler, much abler, and then, just think, how much more beautiful. It’s about time you made some use of that superlative appearance of yours that any woman would cut your throat for. It’s still being wasted, of course, if one thinks of form in relation to its proper function, but at least some people are getting some good out of it. Your father, for instance. I’m sure he’s delighted with this new life of yours. Little Dominique being friendly to people. Little Dominique who’s become normal at last. He’s wrong, of course, but it’s nice to make him happy. A few others, too. Me, for instance. Though you’d never do anything just to make me happy, but then, you see, that’s my lucky faculty–to extract joy from what was not intended for me at all, in a purely selfless way.”
“You’re not answering my question.”
“But I am. You asked why the interest in your activities–and I answer: because they make me happy. Besides, look, one could be astonished–though shortsightedly–if I were gathering information on the activities of my enemies. But not to be informed about the actions of my own side–really, you know, you didn’t think I’d be so unskilled a general, and whatever else you might think of me, you’ve never thought me unskilled.”
“Your side, Ellsworth?”
“Look, Dominique, that’s the trouble with your written–and spoken–style: you use too many question marks. Bad, in any case. Particularly bad when unnecessary. Let’s drop the quiz technique–and just talk. Since we both understand and there aren’t any questions to be asked between us. If there were–you’d have thrown me out. Instead, you gave me a very expensive liqueur.”
He held the rim of the glass under his nose and inhaled with a loose kind of sensual relish, which, at a dinner table, would have been equivalent to a loud lipsmacking, vulgar there, superlatively elegant here, over a cut-crystal edge pressed to a neat little mustache.
“All right,” she said. “Talk.”
“That’s what I’ve been doing. Which is considerate of me–since you’re not ready to talk. Not yet, for a while. Well, let’s talk–in a purely contemplative manner–about how interesting it is to see people welcoming you into their midst so eagerly, accepting you, flocking to you. Why is it, do you suppose? They do plenty of snubbing on their own, but just let someone who’s snubbed them all her life suddenly break down and turn gregarious–and they all come rolling on their backs with their paws folded, for you to rub their bellies. Why? There could be two explanations, I think. The nice one would be that they are generous and wish to honor you with their friendship. Only the nice explanations are never the true ones. The other one is that they know you’re degrading yourself by needing them, you’re coming down off a pinnacle–every loneliness is a pinnacle–and they’re delighted to drag you down through their friendship. Though, of course, none of them knows it consciously, except yourself. That’s why you go through agonies, doing it, and you’d never do it for a noble cause, you’d never do it except for the end you’ve chosen, an end viler than the means and making the means endurable.”