The Fountainhead

"Yes, of course," he said.

He got up and went to dress.

No Skin Off Your Nose had been ru

Wynand and Dominique sat in the center of the fourth row, not looking at each other, listening to the play. The things being done on the stage were merely trite and crass; but the undercurrent made them frightening. There was an air about the ponderous inanities spoken, which the actors had absorbed like an infection; it was in their smirking faces, in the slyness of their voices; in their untidy gestures. It was an air of inanities uttered as revelations and insolently demanding acceptance as such; an air, not of i

There was silence in the audience, puzzled and humble. When someone laughed, the rest joined in, with relief, glad to learn that they were enjoying themselves. Jules Fougler had not tried to influence anybody; he had merely made clear — well in advance and through many cha

In the intermission Wynand heard a stout woman saying: "It's wonderful. I don't understand it, but I have the feeling that it's something very important." Dominique asked him: "Do you wish to go, Gail?" He said: "No. We'll stay to the end."

He was silent in the car on their way home. When they entered their drawing room, he stood waiting, ready to hear and accept anything. For a moment she felt the desire to spare him. She felt empty and very tired. She did not want to hurt him; she wanted to seek his help.

Then she thought again what she had thought in the theater. She thought that this play was the creation of the Ba

"Dominique ... what's the matter?"

She heard Wynand's voice. It was soft and anxious. He had never allowed himself to betray anxiety. She grasped the sound as a reflection of her own face, of what he had seen in her face.

She stood straight, and sure of herself, and very silent inside.

"I'm thinking of you, Gail," she said.

He waited.

"Well, Gail? The total passion for the total height?" She laughed, letting her arms swing sloppily in the ma

He stood quietly, hearing it, accepting.

"I think you should take a manuscript of that play and place it on a stand in the center of your gallery downstairs. I think you should rechristen your yacht and call her No Skin Off Your Nose. I think you should take me — "

"Keep still."

" — and put me in the cast and make me play the role of Mary every evening. Mary who adopts the homeless muskrat and ... "

"Dominique, keep still."

"Then talk. I want to hear you talk."

"I've never justified myself to anyone."

"Well, boast then. That would do just as well."

"If you want to hear it, it made me sick, that play. As you knew it would. That was worse than the Bronx housewife."

"Much worse."

"But I can think of something worse still. Writing a great play and offering it for tonight's audience to laugh at. Letting oneself be martyred by the kind of people we saw frolicking tonight."

He saw that something had reached her; he could not tell whether it was an answer of surprise or of anger. He did not know how well she recognized these words. He went on:

"It did make me sick. But so have a great many things which the Ba

"What you felt tonight."

"A minor kind of hell. Because you sat there with me. That's what you wanted, wasn't it? To make me feel the contrast. Still, you miscalculated. I looked at the stage and I thought, this is what people are like, such are their spirits, but I — I've found you, I have you — and the contrast was worth the pain. I did suffer tonight, as you wanted, but it was a pain that went only down to a certain point and then ... "

"Shut up!" she screamed. "Shut up, God damn you!"

They stood for a moment, both astonished. He moved first; he knew she needed his help; he grasped her shoulders. She tore herself away. She walked across the room, to the window; she stood looking at the city, at the great buildings spread in black and fire below her.

After a while she said, her voice toneless:

"I'm sorry, Gail."

He did not answer.

"I had no right to say those things to you." She did not turn, her arms raised, holding the frame of the window. "We're even, Gail. I'm paid back, if that will make it better for you. I broke first."

"I don't want you to be paid back." He spoke quietly. "Dominique, what was it?"

"Nothing."

"What did I make you think of? It wasn't what I said. It was something else. What did the words mean to you?"

"Nothing."

"A pain that went only down to a certain point. It was that sentence. Why?" She was looking at the city. In the distance she could see the shaft of the Cord Building. "Dominique, I've seen what you can take. It must be something very terrible if it could do that to you. I must know. There's nothing impossible. I can help you against it, whatever it is." She did not answer. "At the theater, it was not just that fool play. There was something else for you tonight. I saw your face. And then it was the same thing again here. What is it?"