She looked at him. He was smiling pleasantly.
"Yes of course," she said, "that's part of the same crime also."
"Let's have dinner together one of these days, Dominique," he said. "You really don't let me see enough of you."
"All right," she said. "Anytime you wish."
At his trial for the assault on Ellsworth Toohey, Steven Mallory refused to disclose his motive. He made no statement. He seemed indifferent to any possible sentence. But Ellsworth Toohey created a minor sensation when he appeared, unsolicited, in Mallory's defense. He pleaded with the judge for leniency; he explained that he had no desire to see Mallory's future and career destroyed. Everybody in the courtroom was touched — except Steven Mallory. Steven Mallory listened and looked as if he were enduring some special process of cruelty. The judge gave him two years and suspended the sentence.
There was a great deal of comment on Toohey's extraordinary generosity. Toohey dismissed all praise, gaily and modestly. "My friends," was his remark — the one to appear in all the papers — "I refuse to be an accomplice in the manufacturing of martyrs."
At the first meeting of the proposed organization of young architects Keating concluded that Toohey had a wonderful ability for choosing people who fitted well together. There was an air about the eighteen persons present which he could not define, but which gave him a sense of comfort, a security he had not experienced in solitude or in any other gathering; and part of the comfort was the knowledge that all the others felt the same way for the same unaccountable reason. It was a feeling of brotherhood, but somehow not of a sainted or noble brotherhood; yet this precisely was the comfort — that one felt, among them, no necessity for being sainted or noble.
Were it not for this kinship, Keating would have been disappointed in the gathering. Of the eighteen seated about Toohey's living room, none was an architect of distinction, except himself and Gordon L. Prescott, who wore a beige turtle-neck sweater and looked faintly patronizing, but eager. Keating had never heard the names of the others. Most of them were beginners, young, poorly dressed and belligerent. Some were only draftsmen. There was one woman architect who had built a few small private homes, mainly for wealthy widows; she had an aggressive manner, a tight mouth and a fresh petunia in her hair. There was a boy with pure, innocent eyes. There was an obscure contractor with a fat, expressionless face. There was a tall, dry woman who was an interior decorator, and another woman of no definite occupation at all.
Keating could not understand what exactly was to be the purpose of the group, though there was a great deal of talk. None of the talk was too coherent, but all of it seemed to have the same undercurrent. He felt that the undercurrent was the one thing clear among all the vague generalities, even though nobody would mention it. It held him there, as it held the others, and he had no desire to define it.
The young men talked a great deal about injustice, unfairness, the cruelty of society toward youth, and suggested that everyone should have his future commissions guaranteed when he left college. The woman architect shrieked briefly something about the iniquity of the rich. The contractor barked that it was a hard world and that "fellows gotta help one another." The boy with the innocent eyes pleaded that "we could do so much good ... " His voice had a note of desperate sincerity which seemed embarrassing and out of place. Gordon L. Prescott declared that the A.G.A. was a bunch of old fogies with no conception of social responsibility and not a drop of virile blood in the lot of them, and that it was time to kick them in the pants anyway. The woman of indefinite occupation spoke about ideals and causes, though nobody could gather just what these were.
Peter Keating was elected chairman, unanimously. Gordon L. Prescott was elected vice-chairman and treasurer. Toohey declined all nominations. He declared that he would act only as an unofficial advisor. It was decided that the organization would be named the "Council of American Builders." It was decided that membership would not be restricted to architects, but would be open to "allied crafts" and to "all those holding the interests of the great profession of building at heart."
Then Toohey spoke. He spoke at some length, standing up, leaning on the knuckles of one hand against a table. His great voice was soft and persuasive. It filled the room, but it made his listeners realize that it could have filled a Roman amphitheater; there was something subtly flattering in this realization, in the sound of the powerful voice being held in check for their benefit.
" ... and thus, my friends, what the architectural profession lacks is an understanding of its own social importance. This lack is due to a double cause: to the anti-social nature of our entire society and to your own inherent modesty. You have been conditioned to think of yourselves merely as breadwinners with no higher purpose than to earn your fees and the means of your own existence. Isn't it time, my friends, to pause and to redefine your position in society? Of all the crafts, yours is the most important. Important, not in the amount of money you might make, not in the degree of artistic skill you might exhibit, but in the service you render to your fellow men. You are those who provide mankind's shelter. Remember this and then look at our cities, at our slums, to realize the gigantic task awaiting you. But to meet this challenge you must be armed with a broader vision of yourselves and of your work. You are not hired lackeys of the rich. You are crusaders in the cause of the underprivileged and the unsheltered. Not by what we are shall we be judged, but by those we serve. Let us stand united in this spirit. Let us — in all matters — be faithful to this new, broader, higher perspective. Let us organize — well, my friends, shall I say — a nobler dream?"
Keating listened avidly. He had always thought of himself as a breadwinner bent upon earning his fees, in a profession he had chosen because his mother had wanted him to choose it. It was gratifying to discover that he was much more than this; that his daily activity carried a nobler significance. It was pleasant and it was drugging. He knew that all the others in the room felt it also.
" ... and when our system of society collapses, the craft of builders will not be swept under, it will be swept up to greater prominence and greater recognition ... "
The doorbell rang. Then Toohey's valet appeared for an instant, holding the door of the living room open to admit Dominique Francon.
By the manner in which Toohey stopped, on a half-uttered word, Keating knew that Dominique had not been invited or expected. She smiled at Toohey, shook her head and moved one hand in a gesture telling him to continue. He managed a faint bow in her direction, barely more than a movement of his eyebrows, and went on with his speech. It was a pleasant greeting and its informality included the guest in the intimate brotherhood of the occasion, but it seemed to Keating that it had come just one beat too late. He had never before seen Toohey miss the right moment.
Dominique sat down in a corner, behind the others. Keating forgot to listen for a while, trying to attract her attention. He had to wait until her eyes had traveled thoughtfully about the room, from face to face, and stopped on his. He bowed and nodded vigorously, with the smile of greeting a private possession. She inclined her head, he saw her lashes touching her cheeks for an instant as her eyes closed, and then she looked at him again. She sat looking at him for a long moment, without smiling, as if she were rediscovering something in his face. He had not seen her since spring. He thought that she looked a little tired and lovelier than his memory of her.
Then he turned to Ellsworth Toohey once more and he listened. The words he heard were as stirring as ever, but his pleasure in them had an edge of uneasiness. He looked at Dominique. She did not belong in this room, at this meeting. He could not say why, but the certainty of it was enormous and oppressive. It was not her beauty, it was not her insolent elegance. But something made her an outsider. It was as if they had all been comfortably naked, and a person had entered fully clothed, suddenly making them self-conscious and indecent. Yet she did nothing. She sat listening attentively. Once, she leaned back, crossing her legs, and lighted a cigarette. She shook the flame off the match with a brusque little jerk of her wrist and she dropped the match into an ash tray on a table beside her. He saw her drop the match into the ash tray; he felt as if that movement of her wrist had tossed the match into all their faces. He thought that he was being preposterous. But he noticed that Ellsworth Toohey never looked at her as he spoke.