She folded the cable and slipped it into her purse.
"Thank you, Ellsworth."
"If you're going to fight me, my dear, it will take more than speeches."
"Haven't I always?"
"Yes. Yes, of course you have. Quite right. You're correcting me again. You have always fought me — and the only time you broke down and screamed for mercy was on that witness stand."
"That's right."
"That's where I miscalculated."
"Yes."
He bowed formally and left the room.
She made a package of the things she wanted to take home. Then she went to Scarret's office. She showed him the cable in her hand, but she did not give it to him.
"Okay, Alvah," she said.
"Dominique, I couldn't help it, I couldn't help it, it was — How the hell did you get that?"
"It's all right, Alvah. No, I won't give it back to you. I want to keep it." She put the cable back in her bag. "Mail me my check and anything else that has to be discussed."
"You ... you were going to resign anyway, weren't you?"
"Yes, I was. But I like it better — being fired."
"Dominique, if you knew how awful I feel about it. I can't believe it. I simply can't believe it."
"So you people made a martyr out of me, after all. And that is the one thing I've tried all my life not to be. It's so graceless, being a martyr. It's honoring your adversaries too much. But I'll tell you this, Alvah — I'll tell it to you, because I couldn't find a less appropriate person to hear it: nothing that you do to me — or to him — will be worse than what I'll do myself. If you think I can't take the Stoddard Temple, wait till you see what I can take."
On an evening three days after the trial Ellsworth Toohey sat in his room, listening to the radio. He did not feel like working and he allowed himself a rest, relaxing luxuriously in an armchair, letting his fingers follow the rhythm of a complicated symphony. He heard a knock at his door. "Co-ome in," he drawled.
Catherine came in. She glanced at the radio by way of apology for her entrance.
"I knew you weren't working, Uncle Ellsworth. I want to speak to you."
She stood slumped, her body thin and curveless. She wore a skirt of expensive tweed, unpressed. She had smeared some makeup on her face; the skin showed lifeless under the patches of powder. At twenty-six she looked like a woman trying to hide the fact of being over thirty.
In the last few years, with her uncle's help, she had become an able social worker. She held a paid job in a settlement house, she had a small bank account of her own; she took her friends out to lunch, older women of her profession, and they talked about the problems of unwed mothers, self-expression for the children of the poor, and the evils of industrial corporations.
In the last few years Toohey seemed to have forgotten her existence. But he knew that she was enormously aware of him in her silent, self-effacing way. He was seldom first to speak to her. But she came to him continuously for minor advice. She was like a small motor running on his energy, and she had to stop for refueling once in a while. She would not go to the theater without consulting him about the play. She would not attend a lecture course without asking his opinion. Once she developed a friendship with a girl who was intelligent, capable, gay and loved the poor, though a social worker. Toohey did not approve of the girl. Catherine dropped her.
When she needed advice, she asked for it briefly, in passing, anxious not to delay him: between the courses of a meal, at the elevator door on his way out, in the living room when some important broadcast stopped for station identification. She made it a point to show that she would presume to claim nothing but the waste scraps of his time.
So Toohey looked at her, surprised, when she entered his study. He said:
"Certainly, pet. I'm not busy. I'm never too busy for you, anyway. Turn the thing down a bit, will you?"
She softened the volume of the radio, and she slumped down in an armchair facing him. Her movements were awkward and contradictory, like an adolescent's: she had lost the habit of moving with assurance, and yet, at times, a gesture, a jerk of her head, would show a dry, overbearing impatience which she was beginning to develop.
She looked at her uncle. Behind her glasses, her eyes were still and tense, but unrevealing. She said:
"What have you been doing, Uncle Ellsworth? I saw something in the papers about winning some big lawsuit that you were connected with. I was glad. I haven't read the papers for months. I've been so busy ... No, that's not quite true. I've had the time, but when I came home I just couldn't make myself do anything, I just fell in bed and went to sleep. Uncle Ellsworth, do people sleep a lot because they're tired or because they want to escape from something?"
"Now, my dear, this doesn't sound like you at all. None of it." She shook her head helplessly: "I know."
"What is the matter?"
She said, looking at the toes of her shoes, her lips moving with effort:
"I guess I'm no good, Uncle Ellsworth." She raised her eyes to him. "I'm so terribly unhappy."
He looked at her silently, his face earnest, his eyes gentle. She whispered:
"You understand?" He nodded. "You're not angry at me? You don't despise me?"
"My dear, how could I?"
"I didn't want to say it. Not even to myself. It's not just tonight, it's for a long time back. Just let me say everything, don't be shocked, I've got to tell it. It's like going to confession as I used to — oh, don't think I'm returning to that, I know religion is only a ... a device of class exploitation, don't think I'd let you down after you explained it all so well. I don't miss going to church. But it's just — it's just that I've got to have somebody listen."
"Katie, darling, first of all, why are you so frightened? You mustn't be. Certainly not of speaking to me. Just relax, be yourself and tell me what happened."
She looked at him gratefully. "You're ... so sensitive, Uncle Ellsworth. That's one thing I didn't want to say, but you guessed. I am frightened. Because — well, you see, you just said, be yourself. And what I'm afraid of most is of being myself. Because I'm vicious."
He laughed, not offensively, but warmly, the sound destroying her statement. But she did not smile.
"No, Uncle Ellsworth, it's true. I'll try to explain. You see, always, since I was a child, I wanted to do right. I used to think everybody did, but now I don't think so. Some people try their best, even if they do make mistakes, and others just don't care. I've always cared. I took it very seriously. Of course I knew that I'm not a brilliant person and that it's a very big subject, good and evil. But I felt that whatever is the good — as much as it would be possible for me to know — I would do my honest best to live up to it. Which is all anybody can try, isn't it? This probably sounds terribly childish to you."
"No, Katie, it doesn't. Go on, my dear."
"Well, to begin with, I knew that it was evil to be selfish. That much I was sure of. So I tried never to demand anything for myself. When Peter would disappear for months ... No, I don't think you approve of that."
"Of what, my dear?"
"Of Peter and me. So I won't talk about that. It's not important anyway. Well, you can see why I was so happy when I came to live with you. You're as close to the ideal of unselfishness as anyone can be. I tried to follow you the best I could. That's how I chose the work I'm doing. You never actually said that I should choose it, but I came to feel that you thought so. Don't ask me how I came to feel it — it was nothing tangible, just little things you said. I felt very confident when I started. I knew that unhappiness comes from selfishness, and that one can find true happiness only in dedicating oneself to others. You said that. So many people have said that. Why, all the greatest men in history have been saying that for centuries."