Keating tore forward and found Francon in the crowd. "Well, Peter!" said Francon brightly. "Want me to get you a drink? Not so hot," he added, lowering his voice, "but the Manhattans aren't too bad."
"No," said Keating, "thanks."
"Entre nous," said Francon, winking at the model of the capitol, "it's a holy mess, isn't it?"
"Yes," said Keating. "Miserable proportions ... That dome looks like Holcombe's face imitating a sunrise on the roof ... " They had stopped in full view of the library and Keating's eyes were fixed on the girl in black, inviting Francon to notice it; he enjoyed having Francon in a trap.
"And the plan! The plan! Do you see that on the second floor ... oh," said Francon, noticing.
He looked at Keating, then at the library, then at Keating again.
"Well," said Francon at last, "don't blame me afterward. You've asked for it. Come on."
They entered the library together. Keating stopped, correctly, but allowing his eyes an improper intensity, while Francon beamed with unconvincing cheeriness:
"Dominique, my dear! May I present? — this is Peter Keating, my own right hand. Peter — my daughter."
"How do you do," said Keating, his voice soft.
Dominique bowed gravely.
"I have waited to meet you for such a long time, Miss Francon."
"This will be interesting," said Dominique. "You will want to be nice to me, of course, and yet that won't be diplomatic."
"What do you mean, Miss Francon?"
"Father would prefer you to be horrible with me. Father and I don't get along at all."
"Why, Miss Francon, I ... "
"I think it's only fair to tell you this at the beginning. You may want to redraw some conclusions." He was looking for Francon, but Francon had vanished. "No," she said softly, "Father doesn't do these things well at all. He's too obvious. You asked him for the introduction, but he shouldn't have let me notice that. However, it's quite all right, since we both admit it. Sit down."
She slipped into a chair and he sat down obediently beside her. The young men whom he did not know stood about for a few minutes, trying to be included in the conversation by smiling blankly, then wandered off. Keating thought with relief that there was nothing frightening about her; there was only a disquieting contrast between her words and the candid innocence of the manner she used to utter them; he did not know which to trust.
"I admit I asked for the introduction," he said. "That's obvious anyway, isn't it? Who wouldn't ask for it? But don't you think that the conclusions I'll draw may have nothing to do with your father?"
"Don't say that I'm beautiful and exquisite and like no one you've ever met before and that you're very much afraid that you're going to fall in love with me. You'll say it eventually, but let's postpone it. Apart from that, I think we'll get along very nicely."
"But you're trying to make it very difficult for me, aren't you?"
"Yes. Father should have warned you."
"He did."
"You should have listened. Be very considerate of Father. I've met so many of his own right hands that I was beginning to be skeptical. But you're the first one who's lasted. And who looks like he's going to last. I've heard a great deal about you. My congratulations."
"I've been looking forward to meeting you for years. And I've been reading your column with so much ... " He stopped. He knew he shouldn't have mentioned that; and, above all, he shouldn't have stopped.
"So much ... ?" she asked gently.
" ... so much pleasure," he finished, hoping that she would let it go at that.
"Oh, yes," she said. "The Ainsworth house. You designed it. I'm sorry. You just happened to be the victim of one of my rare attacks of honesty. I don't have them often. As you know, if you're read my stuff yesterday."
"I've read it. And — well, I'll follow your example and I'll be perfectly frank. Don't take it as a complaint — one must never complain against one's critics. But really that capitol of Holcombe's is much worse in all those very things that you blasted us for. Why did you give him such a glowing tribute yesterday? Or did you have to?"
"Don't flatter me. Of course I didn't have to. Do you think anyone on the paper pays enough attention to a column on home decoration to care what I say in it? Besides, I'm not even supposed to write about capitols. Only I'm getting tired of home decorations."
"Then why did you praise Holcombe?"
"Because that capitol of his is so awful that to pan it would have been an anticlimax. So I thought it would be amusing to praise it to the sky. It was."
"Is that the way you go about it?"
"That's the way I go about it. But no one reads my column, except housewives who can never afford to decorate their homes, so it doesn't matter at all."
"But what do you really like in architecture?"
"I don't like anything in architecture."
"Well, you know of course that I won't believe that. Why do you write if you have nothing you want to say?"
"To have something to do. Something more disgusting than many other things I could do. And more amusing."
"Come on, that's not a good reason."
"I never have any good reasons."
"But you must be enjoying your work."
"I am. Don't you see that I am?"
"You know, I've actually envied you. Working for a magnificent enterprise like the Wynand papers. The largest organization in the country, commanding the best writing talent and ... "
"Look," she said, leaning toward him confidentially, "let me help you. If you had just met Father, and he were working for the Wynand papers, that would be exactly the right thing to say. But not with me. That's what I'd expect you to say and I don't like to hear what I expect. It would be much more interesting if you said that the Wynand papers are a contemptible dump heap of yellow journalism and all their writers put together aren't worth two bits."
"Is that what you really think of them?"
"Not at all. But I don't like people who try to say only what they think I think."
"Thanks. I'll need your help. I've never met anyone ... oh, no, of course, that's what you didn't want me to say. But I really meant it about your papers. I've always admired Gail Wynand. I've always wished I could meet him. What is he like?"
"Just what Austen Heller called him — an exquisite bastard." He winced. He remembered where he had heard Austen Heller say that. The memory of Catherine seemed heavy and vulgar in the presence of the thin white hand he saw hanging over the arm of the chair before him.
"But, I mean," he asked, "what's he like in person?"
"I don't know. I've never met him."
"You haven't?"
"No."
"Oh, I've heard he's so interesting!"
"Undoubtedly. When I'm in a mood for something decadent I'll probably meet him."
"Do you know Toohey?"
"Oh," she said. He saw what he had seen in her eyes before, and he did not like the sweet gaiety of her voice. "Oh, Ellsworth Toohey. Of course I know him. He's wonderful. He's a man I always enjoy talking to. He's such a perfect black-guard."
"Why, Miss Francon! You're the first person who's ever ... "
"I'm not trying to shock you. I meant all of it. I admire him. He's so complete. You don't meet perfection often in this world one way or the other, do you? And he's just that. Sheer perfection in his own way. Everyone else is so unfinished, broken up into so many different pieces that don't fit together. But not Toohey. He's a monolith. Sometimes, when I feel bitter against the world, I find consolation in thinking that it's all right, that I'll be avenged, that the world will get what's coming to it — because there's Ellsworth Toohey."