The Fountainhead Part 14

"A very nice little girl."

"No. Not today. I've made you thoroughly uncomfortable. So I'll make up for it. I'll tell you what I think of you, because you'll be worrying about that. I think you're smart and safe and obvious and quite ambitious and you'll get away with it. And I like you. I'll tell Father that I approve of his right hand very much, so you see you have nothing to fear from the boss's daughter. Though it would be better if I didn't say anything to Father, because my recommendation would work the other way with him."

"May I tell you only one thing that I think about you?"

"Certainly. Any number of them."

"I think it would have been better if you hadn't told me that you liked me. Then I would have had a better chance of its being true."

She laughed.

"If you understand that," she said, "then we'll get along beautifully. Then it might even be true."

Gordon L. Prescott appeared in the arch of the ballroom, gla.s.s in hand. He wore a gray suit and a turtle-neck sweater of silver wool. His boyish face looked freshly scrubbed, and he had his usual air of soap, tooth paste and the outdoors.

"Dominique, darling!" he cried, waving his gla.s.s. "h.e.l.lo, Keating," he added curtly. "Dominique, where have you been hiding yourself? I heard you were here and I've had a h.e.l.l of a time looking for you!"

"h.e.l.lo, Gordon," she said. She said it quite correctly; there was nothing offensive in the quiet politeness of her voice; but following his high note of enthusiasm, her voice struck a tone that seemed flat and deadly in its indifference-as if the two sounds mingled into an audible counterpoint around the melodic thread of her contempt.

Prescott had not heard. "Darling," he said, "you look lovelier every time I see you. One wouldn't think it were possible."

"Seventh time," said Dominique.

"What?"

"Seventh time that you've said it when meeting me, Gordon. I'm counting them."

"You simply won't be serious, Dominique. You'll never be serious."

"Oh, yes, Gordon. I was just having a very serious conversation here with my friend Peter Keating."

A lady waved to Prescott and he accepted the opportunity, escaping, looking very foolish. And Keating delighted in the thought that she had dismissed another man for a conversation she wished to continue with her friend Peter Keating.

But when he turned to her, she asked sweetly: "What was it we were talking about, Mr. Keating?" And then she was staring with too great an interest across the room, at the wizened figure of a little man coughing over a whisky gla.s.s.

"Why," said Keating, "we were ..."

"Oh, there's Eugene Pettingill. My great favorite. I must say h.e.l.lo to Eugene."

And she was up, moving across the room, her body leaning back as she walked, moving toward the most unattractive septuagenarian present.

Keating did not know whether he had been made to join the brotherhood of Gordon L. Prescott, or whether it had been only an accident.

He returned to the ballroom reluctantly. He forced himself to join groups of guests and to talk. He watched Dominique Francon as she moved through the crowd, as she stopped in conversation with others. She never glanced at him again. He could not decide whether he had succeeded with her or failed miserably.

He managed to be at the door when she was leaving.

She stopped and smiled at him enchantingly.

"No," she said, before he could utter a word, "you can't take me home. I have a car waiting. Thank you just the same."

She was gone and he stood at the door, helpless and thinking furiously that he believed he was blushing.

He felt a soft hand on his shoulder and turned to find Francon beside him.

"Going home, Peter? Let me give you a lift."

"But I thought you had to be at the club by seven."

"Oh, that's all right, I'll be a little late, doesn't matter, I'll drive you home, no trouble at all." There was a peculiar expression of purpose on Francon's face, quite unusual for him and unbecoming.

Keating followed him silently, amused, and said nothing when they were alone in the confortable twilight of Francon's car.

"Well?" Francon asked ominously.

Keating smiled. "You're a pig, Guy. You don't know how to appreciate what you've got. Why didn't you tell me? She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."

"Oh, yes," said Francon darkly. "Maybe that's the trouble."

"What trouble? Where do you see any trouble?"

"What do you really think of her, Peter? Forget the looks. You'll see how quickly you'll forget that. What do you think?"

"Well, I think she has a great deal of character."

"Thanks for the understatement."

Francon was gloomily silent, and then he said with an awkward little note of something like hope in his voice: "You know, Peter, I was surprised. I watched you, and you had quite a long chat with her. That's amazing. I fully expected her to chase you away with one nice, poisonous crack. Maybe you could get along with her, after all. I've concluded that you just can't tell anything about her. Maybe ... You know, Peter, what I wanted to tell you is this: Don't pay any attention to what she said about my wanting you to be horrible with her."

The heavy earnestness of that sentence was such a hint that Keating's lips moved to shape a soft whistle, but he caught himself in time. Francon added heavily: "I don't want you to be horrible with her at all."

"You know, Guy," said Keating, in a tone of patronizing reproach, "you shouldn't have run away like that."

"I never know how to speak to her." He sighed. "I've never learned to. I can't understand what in blazes is the matter with her, but something is. She just won't behave like a human being. You know, she's been expelled from two finishing schools. How she ever got through college I can't imagine, but I can tell you that I dreaded to open my mail for four solid years, waiting for word of the inevitable. Then I thought, well, once she's on her own I'm through and I don't have to worry about it, but she's worse than ever."

"What do you find to worry about?"

"I don't. I try not to. I'm glad when I don't have to think of her at all. I can't help it, I just wasn't cut out for a father. But sometimes I get to feel that it's my responsibility after all, though G.o.d knows I don't want it, but still there it is, I should do something about it, there's no one else to a.s.sume it."

"You've let her frighten you, Guy, and really there's nothing to be afraid of."

"You don't think so?"

"No."

"Maybe you're the man to handle her. I don't regret your meeting her now, and you know that I didn't want you to. Yes, I think you're the one man who could handle her. You ... you're quite determined-aren't you, Peter?-when you're after something?"

"Well," said Keating, throwing one hand up in a careless gesture, "I'm not afraid very often."

Then he leaned back against the cushions, as if he were tired, as if he had heard nothing of importance, and he kept silent for the rest of the drive. Francon kept silent also.

"Boys," said John Erik Snyte, "don't spare yourselves on this. It's the most important thing we've had this year. Not much money, you understand, but the prestige, the connections! If we do land it, won't some of those great architects turn green! You see, Austen h.e.l.ler has told me frankly that we're the third firm he's approached. He would have none of what those big fellows tried to sell him. So it's up to us, boys. You know, something different, unusual, but in good taste, and you know, different. different. Now do your best." Now do your best."

His five designers sat in a semicircle before him. "Gothic" looked bored and "Miscellaneous" looked discouraged in advance; "Renaissance" was following the course of a fly on the ceiling. Roark asked: "What did he actually say, Mr. Snyte?"

Snyte shrugged and looked at Roark with amus.e.m.e.nt, as if he and Roark shared a shameful secret about the new client, not worth mentioning.

"Nothing that makes great sense-quite between us, boys," said Snyte. "He was somewhat inarticulate, considering his great command of the English language in print. He admitted he knew nothing about architecture. He didn't say whether he wanted it modernistic or period or what. He said something to the effect that he wanted a house of his own, but he's hesitated for a long time about building one because all houses look alike to him and they all look like h.e.l.l and he doesn't see how anyone can become enthusiastic about any house, and yet he has the idea that he wants a building he could love. 'A building that would mean something' is what he said, though he added that he 'didn't know what or how.' There. That's about all he said. Not much to go on, and I wouldn't have undertaken to submit sketches if it weren't Austen h.e.l.ler. But I grant you that it doesn't make sense.... What's the matter, Roark? "

"Nothing," said Roark.

This ended the first conference on the subject of a residence for Austen h.e.l.ler.

Later that day Snyte crowded his five designers into a train, and they went to Connecticut to see the site h.e.l.ler had chosen. They stood on a lonely, rocky stretch of sh.o.r.e, three miles beyond an unfashionable little town; they munched sandwiches and peanuts, and they looked at a cliff rising in broken ledges from the ground to end in a straight, brutal, naked drop over the sea, a vertical shaft of rock forming a cross with the long, pale horizontal of the sea.

"There," said Snyte. "That's it." He twirled a pencil in his hand. "d.a.m.nable, eh?" He sighed. "I tried to suggest a more respectable location, but he didn't take it so well so I had to shut up." He twirled the pencil. "That's where he wants the house, right on the top of that rock." He scratched the tip of his nose with the point of the pencil. "I tried to suggest setting it farther back from the sh.o.r.e and keeping the d.a.m.n rock for a view, but that didn't go so well either." He bit the eraser between the tips of his teeth. "Just think of the blasting, the leveling one's got to do on that top." He cleaned his fingernail with the lead, leaving a black mark. "Well, that's that.... Observe the grade, and the quality of the stone. The approach will be difficult.... I have all the surveys and the photographs in the office.... Well ... Who's got a cigarette? ... Well, I think that's about all.... I'll help you with suggestions anytime.... Well ... What time is that d.a.m.n train back?"

Thus the five designers were started on their task. Four of them proceeded immediately at their drawing boards. Roark returned alone to the site, many times.

Roark's five months with Snyte stretched behind him like a blank. Had he wished to ask himself what he had felt, he would have found no answer, save in the fact that he remembered nothing of these months. He could remember each sketch he had made. He could, if he tried, remember what had happened to those sketches; he did not try.

But he had not loved any of them as he loved the house of Austen h.e.l.ler. He stayed in the drafting room through evening after evening, alone with a sheet of paper and the thought of a cliff over the sea. No one saw his sketches until they were finished.

When they were finished, late one night, he sat at his table, with the sheets spread before him, sat for many hours, one hand propping his forehead, the other hanging by his side, blood gathering in the fingers, numbing them, while the street beyond the window became deep blue, then pale gray. He did not look at the sketches. He felt empty and very tired.

The house on the sketches had been designed not by Roark, but by the cliff on which it stood. It was as if the cliff had grown and completed itself and proclaimed the purpose for which it had been waiting. The house was broken into many levels, following the ledges of the rock, rising as it rose, in gradual ma.s.ses, in planes flowing together up into one consummate harmony. The walls, of the same granite as the rock, continued its vertical lines upward; the wide, projecting terraces of concrete, silver as the sea, followed the line of the waves, of the straight horizon.

Roark was still sitting at his table when the men returned to begin their day in the drafting room. Then the sketches were sent to Snyte's office.

Two days later, the final version of the house to be submitted to Austen h.e.l.ler, the version chosen and edited by John Erik Snyte, executed by the Chinese artist, lay swathed in tissue paper on a table. It was Roark's house. His compet.i.tors had been eliminated. It was Roark's house, but its walls were now of red brick, its windows were cut to conventional size and equipped with green shutters, two of its projecting wings were omitted, the great cantilevered terrace over the sea was replaced by a little wrought-iron balcony, and the house was provided with an entrance of Ionic columns supporting a broken pediment, and with a little spire supporting a weather vane.

John Erik Snyte stood by the table, his two hands spread in the air over the sketch, without touching the virgin purity of its delicate colors.

"That is what Mr. h.e.l.ler had in mind, I'm sure," he said. "Pretty good ... Yes, pretty good ... Roark, how many times do I have to ask you not to smoke around a final sketch? Stand away. You'll get ashes on it."

Austen h.e.l.ler was expected at twelve o'clock. But at half past eleven Mrs. Symington arrived unannounced and demanded to see Mr. Snyte immediately. Mrs. Symington was an imposing dowager who had just moved into her new residence, designed by Mr. Snyte; besides, Snyte expected a commission for an apartment house from her brother. He could not refuse to see her and he bowed her into his office, where she proceeded to state without reticence of expression that the ceiling of her library had cracked and the bay windows of her drawing room were hidden under a perpetual veil of moisture which she could not combat. Snyte summoned his chief engineer and they launched together into detailed explanations, apologies and d.a.m.nations of contractors. Mrs. Symington showed no sign of relenting when a signal buzzed on Snyte's desk and the reception clerk's voice announced Austin h.e.l.ler.

It would have been impossible to ask Mrs. Symington to leave or Austin h.e.l.ler to wait. Snyte solved the problem by abandoning her to the soothing speech of his engineer and excusing himself for a moment. Then he emerged into the reception room, shook h.e.l.ler's hand and suggested: "Would you mind stepping into the drafting room, Mr. h.e.l.ler? Better light in there, you know, and the sketch is all ready for you, and I didn't want to take the chance of moving it."

h.e.l.ler did not seem to mind. He followed Snyte obediently into the drafting room, a tall, broad-shouldered figure in English tweeds, with sandy hair and a square face drawn in countless creases around the ironical calm of the eyes.

The sketch lay on the Chinese artist's table, and the artist stepped aside diffidently, in silence. The next table was Roark's. He stood with his back to h.e.l.ler; he went on with his drawing, and did not turn. The employees had been trained not to intrude on the occasions when Snyte brought a client into the drafting room.

Snyte's finger tips lifted the tissue paper, as if raising the veil of a bride. Then he stepped back and watched h.e.l.ler's face. h.e.l.ler bent down and stood hunched, drawn, intent, saying nothing for a long time.

"Listen, Mr. Snyte," he began at last. "Listen, I think ..." and stopped.

Snyte waited patiently, pleased, sensing the approach of something he didn't want to disturb.

"This," said h.e.l.ler suddenly, loudly, slamming his fist down on the drawing, and Snyte winced, "this is the nearest anyone's ever come to it!"

"I knew you'd like it, Mr. h.e.l.ler," said Snyte.

"I don't," said h.e.l.ler.

Snyte blinked and waited.

"It's so near somehow," said h.e.l.ler regretfully, "but it's not right. I don't know where, but it's not. Do forgive me, if this sounds vague, but I like things at once or I don't. I know that I wouldn't be comfortable, for instance, with that entrance. It's a lovely entrance, but you won't even notice it because you've seen it so often."

"Ah, but allow me to point out a few considerations, Mr. h.e.l.ler. One wants to be modern, of course, but one wants to preserve the appearance of a home. A combination of stateliness and coziness, you understand, a very austere house like this must have a few softening touches. It is strictly correct architecturally."

"No doubt," said h.e.l.ler. "I wouldn't know about that. I've never been strictly correct in my life."

"Just let me explain this scheme and you'll see that it's ..."

"I know," said h.e.l.ler wearily. "I know. I'm sure you're right. Only ..." His voice had a sound of the eagerness he wished he could feel. "Only, if it had some unity, some ... some central idea ... which is there and isn't ... if it seemed to live ... which it doesn't ... It lacks something and it has too much.... If it were cleaner, more clear-cut ... what's the word I've heard used?-if it were integrated...."

Roark turned. He was at the other side of the table. He seized the sketch, his hand flashed forward and a pencil ripped across the drawing, slashing raw black lines over the untouchable water-color. The lines blasted off the Ionic columns, the pediment, the entrance, the spire, the blinds, the bricks; they flung up two wings of stone; they rent the windows wide; they splintered the balcony and hurled a terrace over the sea.

It was being done before the others had grasped the moment when it began. Then Snyte jumped forward, but h.e.l.ler seized his wrist and stopped him. Roark's hand went on razing walls, splitting, rebuilding in furious strokes.

Roark threw his head up once, for a flash of a second, to look at h.e.l.ler across the table. It was all the introduction they needed; it was like a handshake. Roark went on, and when he threw the pencil down, the house-as he had designed it-stood completed in an ordered pattern of black streaks. The performance had not lasted five minutes.

Snyte made an attempt at a sound. As h.e.l.ler said nothing, Snyte felt free to whirl on Roark and scream: "You're fired, G.o.d d.a.m.n you! Get out of here! You're fired!"

"We're both fired," said Austen h.e.l.ler, winking to Roark. "Come on. Have you had any lunch? Let's go some place. I want to talk to you."

Roark went to his locker to get his hat and coat. The drafting room witnessed a stupefying act and all work stopped to watch it: Austen h.e.l.ler picked up the sketch, folded it over four times, cracking the sacred cardboard, and slipped it into his pocket.

"But, Mr. h.e.l.ler ..." Snyte stammered, "let me explain ... It's perfectly all right if that's what you want, we'll do the sketch over ... let me explain ..."

"Not now," said h.e.l.ler. "Not now." He added at the door: "I'll send you a check."

Then h.e.l.ler was gone, and Roark with him; and the door, as h.e.l.ler swung it shut behind them, sounded like the closing paragraph in one of h.e.l.ler's articles.

Roark had not said a word.

In the softly lighted booth of the most expensive restaurant that Roark had ever entered, across the crystal and silver glittering between them, h.e.l.ler was saying: "... because that's the house I want, because that's the house I've always wanted. Can you build it for me, draw up the plans and supervise the construction?"

"Yes," said Roark.

"How long will it take if we start at once?"

"About eight months."