She was tortured by peculiar things: by the street where he lived, by the doorstep of his house, by the cars that turned the corner of his block. She resented the cars in particular; she wished she could make them drive on to the next street. She looked at the garbage pail by the stoop next door, and she wondered whether it had stood there when he passed by, on his way to his office this morning, whether he had looked at that crumpled cigarette package on top. Once, in the lobby of his house, she saw a man stepping out of the elevator; she was shocked for a second; she had always felt as if he were the only inhabitant of that house. When she rode up in the small, self-operating elevator, she stood leaning against the wall, her arms crossed over her breast, her hands hugging her shoulders, feeling huddled and intimate, as in a stall under a warm shower. She thought of that, while some gentleman was telling her about the latest show on Broadway, while Roark was sipping a cocktail at the other end of the room, while she heard the hostess whispering to somebody: "My Lord, I didn't think Gordon would bring Dominique — I know Austen will be furious at me, because of his friend Roark being here, you know."
Later, lying across his bed, her eyes closed, her cheeks flushed, her lips wet, losing the sense of the rules she herself had imposed, losing the sense of her words, she whispered: "Roark, there was a man talking to you out there today, and he was smiling at you, the fool, the terrible fool, last week he was looking at a pair of movie comedians and loving them, I wanted to tell that man: don't look at him, you'll have no right to want to look at anything else, don't like him, you'll have to hate the rest of the world, it's like that, you damn fool, one or the other, not together, not with the same eyes, don't look at him, don't like him, don't approve, that's what I wanted to tell him, not you and the rest of it, I can't bear to see that, I can't stand it, anything to take you away from it, from their world, from all of them, anything, Roark ... " She did not hear herself saying it, she did not see him smiling, she did not recognize the full understanding in his face, she saw only his face close over hers, and she had nothing to hide from him, nothing to keep unstated, everything was granted, answered, found.
Peter Keating was bewildered. Dominique's sudden devotion to his career seemed dazzling, flattering, enormously profitable; everybody told him so; but there were moments when he did not feel dazzled or flattered; he felt uneasy.
He tried to avoid Guy Francon. "How did you do it, Peter? How did you do it?" Francon would ask. "She must be crazy about you! Who'd every think that Dominique of all people would ... ? And who'd think she could? She'd have made me a millionaire if she'd done her stuff five years ago. But then, of course, a father is not the same inspiration as a ... " He caught an ominous look on Keating's face and changed the end of his sentence to: "as her man, shall we say?"
"Listen, Guy," Keating began, and stopped, sighing, and muttered: "Please, Guy, we mustn't ... "
"I know, I know, I know. We mustn't be premature. But hell, Peter, entre nous, isn't it all as public as an engagement? More so. And louder." Then the smile vanished, and Francon's face looked earnest, peaceful, frankly aged, in one of his rare flashes of genuine dignity. "And I'm glad, Peter," he said simply. "That's what I wanted to happen. I guess I always did love Dominique, after all. It makes me happy. I know I'll be leaving her in good hands. Her and everything else eventually ... "
"Look, old man, will you forgive me? I'm so terribly rushed — had two hours sleep last night, the Colton factory, you know, Jesus, what a job! — thanks to Dominique — it's a killer, but wait till you see it! Wait till you see the check, too!"
"Isn't she wonderful? Will you tell me, why is she doing it? I've asked her and I can't make head or tail of what she says, she gives me the craziest gibberish, you know how she talks."
"Oh well, we should worry, so long as she's doing it!"
He could not tell Francon that he had no answer; he couldn't admit that he had not seen Dominique alone for months; that she refused to see him.
He remembered his last private conversation with her — in the cab on their way from Toohey's meeting. He remembered the indifferent calm of her insults to him — the utter contempt of insults delivered without anger. He could have expected anything after that — except to see her turn into his champion, his press agent, almost — his pimp. That's what's wrong, he thought, that I can think of words like that when I think about it.
He had seen her often since she started on her unrequested campaign; he had been invited to her parties — and introduced to his future clients; he had never been allowed a moment alone with her. He had tried to thank her and to question her. But he could not force a conversation she did not want continued, with a curious mob of guests pressing all around them. So he went on smiling blandly — her hand resting casually on the black sleeve of his dinner jacket, her thigh against his as she stood beside him, her pose possessive and intimate, made flagrantly intimate by her air of not noticing it, while she told an admiring circle what she thought of the Cosmo-Slotnick Building. He heard envious comments from all his friends. He was, he thought bitterly, the only man in New York City who did not think that Dominique Francon was in love with him.
But he knew the dangerous instability of her whims, and this was too valuable a whim to disturb. He stayed away from her and sent her flowers; he rode along and tried not to think of it; the little edge remained — a thin edge of uneasiness.
One day, he met her by chance in a restaurant. He saw her lunching alone and grasped the opportunity. He walked straight to her table, determined to act like an old friend who remembered nothing but her incredible benevolence. After many bright comments on his luck, he asked: "Dominique, why have you been refusing to see me?"
"What should I have wanted to see you for?"
"But good Lord Almighty! ... " That came out involuntarily, with too sharp a sound of long-suppressed anger, and he corrected it hastily, smiling: "Well, don't you think you owed me a chance to thank you?"
"You've thanked me. Many times."
"Yes, but didn't you think we really had to meet alone? Didn't you think that I'd be a little ... bewildered?"
"I haven't thought of it. Yes, I suppose you could be."
"Well?"
"Well what?"
"What is it all about?"
"About ... fifty thousand dollars by now, I think."
"You're being nasty."
"Want me to stop?"
"Oh no! That is, not ... "
"Not the commissions. Fine. I won't stop them. You see? What was there for us to talk about? I'm doing things for you and you're glad to have me do them — so we're in perfect agreement."
"You do say the funniest things! In perfect agreement. That's
sort of a redundancy and an understatement at the same time,
isn't it? What else could we be under the circumstances? You
wouldn't expect me to object to what you're doing, would you?"
"No. I wouldn't."
"But agreeing is not the word for what I feel. I'm so terribly grateful to you that I'm simply dizzy — I was bowled over — don't let me get silly now — I know you don't like that — but I'm so grateful I don't know what to do with myself."