The Early Ayn Rand

Think Twice

The Depression years in New York City (to which she moved in 1934) were a difficult financial struggle for Ayn Rand: she lived on the earnings from Night of January 16th and from a series of jobs she held as reader for various movie companies. She wrote when she could find the time. Nevertheless, the work moved ahead. In 1935, she began making notes for The Fountainhead and planning the architectural research that it would require. Realizing that the novel would be a long-term project, she interrupted it several times to do shorter pieces. In 1937, she wrote the novelette Anthem (published separately by New American Library). In 1939, she wrote a stage adaptation of We the Living, produced on Broadway under the title of The Unconquered (it was not successful). In the same year, she wrote her third and last original stage play, the philosophical murder mystery Think Twice. It has never been produced.

Think Twice, written five years later than Ideal, is finished, mature work, in all major respects characteristic of the author of The Fountainhead. It is the only such piece in the present collection. (Red Fawn is an unedited scenario, and Ideal is not fully representative.) The theme is the distinctive Ayn Rand approach to ethics: the evil of altruism, and the need of man to live an independent, egoistic existence. The hero, who now has primacy over the heroine, is a completely recognizable Ayn Rand type. The plot, fast-moving and logical, has an ingenious twist; the story presents an altruist who, acting on his ideas, specializes in seeking power over others, thereby giving them compelling reasons to want to kill him. (The Russian character was originally a German Nazi; in the 1950s, Miss Rand updated the play, turning him into a Communist.) The style is smoothly assured; the mechanics of alibis, motives, and clues are deftly handled; and the writing displays Ayn Rand's clarity, her sense of drama, her intellectual wit. There is even the first sign of the science-fiction element which, years later, would become John Gait's motor in Atlas Shrugged.

One of Ayn Rand's most impressive literary skills, brilliantly demonstrated in her novels, is her ability to integrate theme and plot. That ability is evidenced in Think Twice— in the union of philosophy and murder mystery. This is not a routine murder story, with some abstract talk thrown in for effect. Nor is it a drawing-room discussion interrupted now and again by some unrelated events. The play is a union of thought and action: the philosophic ideas of the characters actually motivate and explain their actions, which in turn concretize and demonstrate the philosophic point, and acquire significance because of it. The result is a seamless blend of depth and excitement, at once art and entertainment.

A decade later, in her journal of August 28, 1949, Ayn Rand wrote the following:

The idea that "art" and "entertainment" are opposites, that art is serious and dull, while entertainment is empty and stupid, but enjoyable — is the result of the nonhuman, altruistic morality. That which is good [in this view] must be unpleasant. That which is enjoyable is sinful. Pleasure is an indulgence of a low order, to be apologized for. The serious is the performance of a duty, unpleasant and, therefore, uplifting. If a work of art examines life seriously, it must necessarily be unpleasant and unexciting, because such is the nature of life for man. An entertaining, enjoyable play cannot possibly be true to the deeper essence of life, it must be superficial, since life is not to be enjoyed.

It is unlikely that Miss Rand had her early work in mind when she wrote these words, but the present piece does illustrate her point. Think Twice is an entertaining, enjoyable play that is true to the deeper essence of life.

I first read the play in the 1950s, with Miss Rand present, asking me now and then who I thought the murderer was. I guessed just about every possibility, except the right one. Each time, Miss Rand beamed and said: "Think twice." When I finished, she told me that anyone who knew her and her philosophy should have been able to guess right away. She could not, she went on, ever write a series of mysteries, because everyone would know who the murderers were. "How?" I asked.

Now see if you can guess the murderer. After the play, I will quote her answer.

L. P.

CHARACTERS:

WALTER BRECKENRIDGE

CURTISS

SERGE SOOKIN

HARVEY FLEMING

TONY GODDARD

STEVE INGALLS

BILLY BRECKENRIDGE

FLASH KOZINSKY

ADRIENNE KNOWLAND

HELEN BRECKENRIDGE

GREGORY HASTINGS

DIXON

Place Living room of a home in Connecticut

Act I, Scene 1 — Afternoon of July 3^rd

Act I, Scene 2 — That evening

Act II, Scene 1 — Half an hour later

Act II, Scene 2 — Next morning

Afternoon of July 3rd. The living room of a home in Connecticut. A large room, not offensively wealthy, but evidencing both money and an unsuccessful attempt at good taste. The room is stately and Colonial— too deliberately so. Everything is brand-new, resplendently unused; one expects to see price tags on the furniture.

Large French windows, Center, opening upon a lovely view of the grounds with a lake in the distance, a view marred only by a dismal, gray sky. Stairway, Stage Right, leading to a door, and another door downstage, leading to the rest of the ground floor. Entrance door upstage Left. Downstage Left an unused fireplace, with logs stacked neatly, and above the fireplace — a large portrait of WALTER BRECKENRIDGE.

At curtain rise, WALTER BRECKENRIDGE stands alone in front of the fireplace. He is a stately, gray-haired man of fifty, who looks like a saint; a very "human" saint, however: benevolent, dignified, humorous, and a little portly. He stands, looking up at the portrait, deeply absorbed, a gun in his hand.

After a while, CURTISS, the butler, enters from door Right, carrying two empty flower vases. CURTISS is elderly, and severely well-mannered. He deposits the vases on a table and a cabinet. BRECKENRIDGE does not turn and CURTISS does not see the gun.

CURTISS: Anything else, sir? [BRECKENRIDGE does not move] Mr. Breckenridge...

[No answer] Is anything the matter, sir?

BRECKENRIDGE: [Absently] Oh... no... no... I was just wondering... [Points at the portrait] Do you think that in the centuries to come people will say he was a great man? [Turns to face CURTISS] Is it a good likeness of me, Curtiss? [CURTISS sees the gun and steps back with a little gasp] What's the matter?

CURTISS: Mr. Breckenridge!

BRECKENRIDGE: What's the matter with you?

CURTISS: Don't do it, sir! Whatever it is, don't do it! BRECKENRIDGE: [Looks at him in amazement, then notices the gun in his own hand and bursts out laughing] Oh, that?... I'm sorry, Curtiss. I'd quite forgotten I held it.

CURTISS: But, sir...

BRECKENRIDGE: Oh, I just sent the car down to meet Mrs. Breckenridge at the station, and I didn't want her to find this in the car, so I brought it in. We mustn't tell her about... you know, about why I have to carry this. It would only worry her. CURTISS: Yes, of course, sir. I'm so sorry. It just gave me a jolt.

BRECKENRIDGE: I don't blame you. You know, I hate the damn thing myself. [Walks to a cabinet and slips the gun into a drawer] Funny, isn't it? I'm actually afraid of it. And when I think of all the deadly stuff I've handled in the laboratory. Radioactive elements. Cosmic rays. Things that could wipe out the whole population of the state of Connecticut. Never been afraid of them. In fact, never felt anything at all. But this... [Points to the drawer] Do you suppose it's my old age and I'm being sensitive about any... reminder?

CURTISS: [Reproachfully] Your old age, sir!

BRECKENRIDGE: Well, time passes, Curtiss, time passes. Why do they celebrate birthdays? It's just one year closer to the grave. And there's so much to be done. [Looks at the portrait] That's what I was thinking when you came in. Have I done enough in my life? Have I done enough?

[SERGE SOOKIN enters through the French doors. SERGE is about thirty-two, pale, blond, with the face and the manner of a fervent idealist. His clothes are neat, but very poor. His arms are loaded with an enormous bunch of freshly cut flowers]

Ah, Serge... thank you... So kind of you to help us.

SERGE: I hope this flowers Mrs. Breckenridge will like.

BRECKENRIDGE: She loves flowers. We must have lots of flowers... Over here, Serge... [Indicating the vases as SERGE arranges the flowers] We'll put them here — and over there, on the cabinet — and on the fireplace, just one or two sprays on the fireplace.

SERGE: [Wistfully] By us in Moscow, we had the more beautiful flowers.

BRECKENRIDGE: Try not to think of all that, Serge. There are things it's best to forget. [To CURTISS] Have you taken care of the cigarettes, Curtiss?

[CURTISS busies himself filling cigarette boxes]

SERGE: [Grimly] There are the things never one can forget. But I am so sorry. That we should not discuss about. Not today, no? This is a great day.

BRECKENRIDGE: Yes, Serge. This is a great day for me. [Indicating an armchair] I don't think that chair is right, over there. Curtiss, would you move it please this way, to the table? [As CURTISS obeys] That's better, thank you. We must have everything right, Curtiss. For our guests. They are very important guests.

CURTISS: Yes, sir.

[From offstage, there comes the sound of Tchaikovsky's "Autumn Song" expertly played on the piano. BRECKENRIDGE looks in the direction of the sound, a little annoyed, then shrugs and turns to SERGE]

BRECKENRIDGE: You will meet some very interesting people today, Serge. I want you to meet them. Perhaps it will give you a better idea of me. You know, one can judge a man best by his friends.

SERGE: [Looking up the stairs, a little grimly] Not always, I hope.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Looking up] Oh, Steve? You mustn't mind Steve. You mustn't let him upset you.

SERGE: [Coldly] Mr. Ingalls he is not kind.

BRECKENRIDGE: No. Steve's never been kind. But then, you know, strictly speaking, Steve is not a friend. He's my business partner — just a junior partner, as we call it, but darn useful. One of the best physicists in the country.

SERGE: You are so modest, Mr. Breckenridge. You are in the country the greatest physicist. That everybody knows.

BRECKENRIDGE: Perhaps everybody but me.

SERGE: You are to mankind the benefactor. But Mr. Ingalls he is not a friend to the world. In his heart for the world there is no place. Today the world needs friends.

BRECKENRIDGE: That's true. But -

[Doorbell rings. CURTISS opens the door. HARVEY FLEMING stands on the threshold. He is a man in his late forties, tall, gaunt, disreputably unkempt. He looks like anything but an "important" guest: he needs a shave, his clothes need pressing; he is not drunk, but not quite sober. He carries a small, battered overnight bag. He stands for a moment, studying the room glumly]

CURTISS: [Bowing] Good afternoon, sir. Come right in, sir.

FLEMING: [Enters, without removing his hat. Snaps glumly:] Billy arrived yet?

CURTISS: Yes, sir.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Advancing toward FLEMING with a broad smile] Well, Harvey! Greetings and welcome. Harvey, I want you to meet —

FLEMING: [Nods curtly in the general direction of BRECKENRIDGE and SERGE] Hello.

[To CURTISS] Where's Billy's room?

CURTISS: This way, sir.

[FLEMING exits with him through door Right, without a glance at the others]

SERGE: [A little indignant] But what is the matter?

BRECKENRIDGE: You mustn't mind him, Serge. He is a very unhappy man. [Looks impatiently in the direction of the music] I do wish Tony would stop playing.

SERGE: It is so sad, this piece. It is not appropriate today.

BRECKENRIDGE: Ask him to stop, will you?

[SERGE exits Right while BRECKENRIDGE continues rearranging the room. The music stops. SERGE returns, followed by TONY GODDARD. TONY is young, tall, slender, modestly dressed, and a little high-strung, which he does his best to conceal. BRECKENRIDGE speaks gaily:]

Did you notice that there's a phonograph right by the piano, Tony? Why didn't you put on a record by Egon Richter? He plays that piece ever so much better. TONY: It was the record.

BRECKENRIDGE: Well, well! That's one on me.

TONY: I know you don't like to hear me playing.

BRECKENRIDGE: I? Why shouldn't I, Tony?

TONY: I'm sorry... [Indifferently, but not at all offensively] Have I wished you a happy birthday, Mr. Breckenridge?

BRECKENRIDGE: Yes, of course you have. When you arrived. Why, Tony! How unflattering!

TONY: Guess I shouldn't have asked. Makes it worse. I always do things like that.

BRECKENRIDGE: Anything wrong, Tony?

TONY: No. No. [Listlessly] Where are our host and hostess?

BRECKENRIDGE: [With a broad smile] They haven't arrived.

TONY: Not yet?

BRECKENRIDGE: No.

TONY: Isn't that rather peculiar?

BRECKENRIDGE: Why, no. Mrs. Dawson asked me to take care of everything — it was very kind of her, she wanted so much to please me.

SERGE: It is unusual, no? — your preparing the party for your own birthday in the house of somebody else?

BRECKENRIDGE: Oh, the Dawsons are old friends of mine — and they insisted that they wanted to give the party and give it here.

TONY: Well, the house isn't old. It doesn't look as if they'd ever lived in it.

BRECKENRIDGE: It was built very recently.

STEVE INGALLS: [From the top of the stairway] And in very bad taste.

[INGALLS is a man of about forty, tall and lean, with a hard, inscrutable face. He looks like a man who should have great energy— and his appearance is a contrast to his manner and movements: slow, lazy, casual, indifferent. He wears simple sports clothes. He comes lazily down the stairs, while BRECKENRIDGE speaks sharply, looking up at him:]

BRECKENRIDGE: Was that necessary, Steve?

INGALLS: Not at all. They could have chosen a better architect.

BRECKENRIDGE: That's not what I meant.

INGALLS: Don't be obvious, Walter. Was there ever a time when I didn't know what you meant? [To TONY] Hello, Tony. You here, too? As was to be expected. Sacrificial offerings — needed at one's birthday party.

SERGE: [Stiffly] It is Mr. Breckenridge's birthday party.

INGALLS: So it is.

SERGE: If you think you -

BRECKENRIDGE: Please, Serge. Really, Steve, do let's drop the personal remarks just for today, shall we? Particularly about the house and particularly when the Dawsons arrive.

INGALLS: When or if?

BRECKENRIDGE: What do you mean?

INGALLS: And another thing, Walter, is that you always know what I mean.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Does not answer. Then looks impatiently at door Right] I wish they'd bring Billy out. What is he doing there with Harvey? [Goes to ring bell]

TONY: Who else is coming?

BRECKENRIDGE: We're almost all here, except Adrienne. I've sent the car to meet Helen.

SERGE: Adrienne? It is not perhaps Miss Adrienne Knowland?

BRECKENRIDGE: Yes.

[CURTISS enters Right]

CURTISS: Yes, sir?

BRECKENRIDGE: Please tell Mr. Kozinsky to bring Billy out here.

CURTISS: Yes, sir. [Exits Right]

SERGE: It is not the great Adrienne Knowland?

INGALLS: There's only one Adrienne Knowland, Serge. But the adjective is optional.

SERGE: Oh, I am so happy that I should meet her in the person! I have seen her in that so beautiful play — Little Women. I have wondered so often what she is like in the real life. I have thought she must be sweet and lovely — like Mademoiselle Shirley Temple in the cinema, when I was a little boy in Moscow. INGALLS: Yeah?

BRECKENRIDGE: Please, Steve. We know you don't like Adrienne, but couldn't you control it for just a few hours?

[HARVEY FLEMING enters Right and holds the door open for FLASH KOZINSKY, who comes in pushing BILLY BRECKENRIDGE in a wheelchair. BILLY is a boy of fifteen, pale, thin, strangely quiet and a little too well-mannered. FLASH does not carry a college pennant, but "football hero" is written all over him as plainly as if he did. He is young, husky, pleasant-looking, and not too bright. As he wheels the chair in, he bumps it against the doorjamb]

FLEMING: Careful, you clumsy fool!

BILLY: It's all right... Mr. Fleming.

BRECKENRIDGE: Well, Billy! Feel rested after the trip?

BILLY: Yes, Father.

INGALLS: Hello, Bill.

BILLY: Hello, Steve.

FLASH: [Turns to FLEMING. It has taken all this time to penetrate] Say, you can't talk to me like that! FLEMING: Huh?

FLASH: Who are you to talk to me like that?

FLEMING: Skip it

BRECKENRIDGE: [Indicating SERGE] Billy, you remember Mr. Sookin?

BILLY: How do you do, Mr. Sookin.

SERGE: Good afternoon, Billy. Feeling better, no? You look wonderful.

FLEMING: He looks like hell.

BILLY: I'm all right.

SERGE: You are not comfortable maybe? This pillow it is not right. [Adjusts the pillow behind BILLY's head] So! It is better?

BILLY: Thank you.

SERGE: I think the footrest it should be higher. [Adjusts the footrest] So?

BILLY: Thank you.

SERGE: I think perhaps it is a little chilly. You want I should bring the warm shawl?

BILLY: [Very quietly] Leave me alone, will you please?

BRECKENRIDGE: There, there! Billy's just a little nervous. The trip was too much for him — in his condition.

[FLEMING walks brusquely to the sideboard and starts pouring himself a glass of whiskey]

BILLY: [His eyes following FLEMING anxiously, his voice low and almost pleading] Don't do that, Mr. Fleming.

FLEMING: [Looks at him, then puts the bottle down. Quietly:] Okay, kid.

SERGE: [To BRECKENRIDGE, in what he intends to be a whisper] Your poor son, how long he has this paralysis? BRECKENRIDGE: Sh-sh.

BILLY: Six years and four months, Mr. Sookin.

[There is a moment of embarrassed silence. FLASH looks from one face to

another, then bursts out suddenly and loudly:]

FLASH: Well, I don't know what the rest of you think, but I think Mr. Sookin shouldn't've asked that.

FLEMING: Keep still.

FLASH: Well, I think -

[There is a frightening screech of brakes offstage and the sound of a car being stopped violently. A car door is slammed with a bang and a lovely, husky feminine voice yells: "Goddamn it!"]

INGALLS: [With a courtly gesture of introduction in the direction of the sound] There's Mademoiselle Shirley Temple...!

[The entrance door flies open as ADRIENNE KNOWLAND enters without ringing. She is as great a contrast to the conception of a Shirley Temple or of LITTLE WOMEN as can be imagined. She is a woman of about twenty-eight, beautiful and completely unconcerned about her beauty, with sharp, angular movements and a tense, restless energy. Her clothes are simple and tailored, such as a woman would wear for a walk in the country, not the kind one would expect from a glamorous actress. She carries a small suitcase. She enters like a gust of wind and whirls upon BRECKENRIDGE]

ADRIENNE: Walter! Why in hell do they have a horse running loose out there?

BRECKENRIDGE: Adrienne, my dear! How do you -

TONY: [At the same time] A horse?

ADRIENNE: A horse. Hello, Tony. Why do they have a horse cavorting in the middle of the driveway? I almost killed the damn beast and I think I should have.

BRECKENRIDGE: I'm so sorry, my dear. Somebody's carelessness. I shall give orders to —

ADRIENNE: [Forgetting him entirely, to FLEMING] Hello, Harvey. Where have you been hiding yourself lately? Hello, Bill, old pal. I really came here just to see you again. Hello, Flash.

BRECKENRIDGE: Adrienne, my dear, may I present Serge Sookin, a new and very dear friend of mine?

ADRIENNE: How do you do, Mr. Sookin.

SERGE: [Clicking his heels and bowing] I am honored, Miss Knowland.

ADRIENNE: [Looking at the room] Well, I think this place is — [Her glance stops on INGALLS, who is standing aside. She throws at him curtly, as an afterthought:] Hello, Steve. [She turns away from him before he has had time to complete his bow] I think this place is — what one would expect it to be.

BRECKENRIDGE: Would you like to see your room, my dear?

ADRIENNE: No hurry. [Tears her hat off and tosses it halfway across the room. To FLASH, indicating her suitcase:] Flash, be an angel and take my stuff out of the way, will you? [FLASH exits up the stairs with the suitcase. ADRIENNE walks to sideboard and pours herself a drink] Incidentally, where's the host? BRECKENRIDGE: Mr. and Mrs. Dawson are not here yet. ADRIENNE: Not here? That's a new one in etiquette. Oh, and yes, of course, happy birthday.

BRECKENRIDGE: Thank you, my dear.

ADRIENNE: How's the infernal machine?

BRECKENRIDGE: The what?

ADRIENNE: The gadget with cosmic rays that the papers have been yelping about.

BRECKENRIDGE: The papers might do some real yelping about it soon. Very soon.

TONY: I heard it's really a colossal invention, Adrienne.

ADRIENNE: Another one? I think it's outrageous — the amount of space that the Breckenridge Laboratories have always managed to hog in the newspapers. But then, Walter has a genius for not remaining unnoticed. Like a stripteaser.

INGALLS: Or an actress.

ADRIENNE: [Whirls to him, then away, and repeats calmly, her voice a little hard] Or an actress.

SERGE: [Breaks the uncomfortable little silence, speaking hotly and with a defiant sort of respect] The stage — it is a great art. It helps such as suffer and are poor, all the misery and the sadness it makes forget for the few hours. The theater — it is the noble work of the humanitarianism.

ADRIENNE: [Looks at him very coldly, then turns to BRECKENRIDGE and says dryly:] Congratulations, Walter.

BRECKENRIDGE: What?

ADRIENNE: Your very dear friend is a real find, isn't he? Out of what gutter did you pick him up?

SERGE: [Stiffly] Miss Knowland...!

ADRIENNE: But, sweetheart, there's no need to look so Russian about it. I meant it in the nicest way. Besides, it goes for me, too, and for all of us here. We were all picked up by Walter out of one gutter or another. That's why he's a great man.

SERGE: I do not understand.

ADRIENNE: You didn't know? But it's no secret. I was singing in a dive, just one step better than a cat house — not a very long step — when Walter discovered me, and he built the Breckenridge Theater. Tony here is studying medicine — on a Breckenridge scholarship. Harvey has nothing but Breckenridge cash between him and the Bowery Mission — only nobody would let him into the Mission, just as nobody will give him a job, because he drinks. That's all right, Harvey — I do, too, at times. Billy here —

TONY: For God's sake, Adrienne!

ADRIENNE: But we're among friends. We're all in the same boat, aren't we? Except Steve, of course. Steve is a special case and the less you know about him, the better.

BRECKENRIDGE: Adrienne, my dear, we know you have a wonderful sense of humor, but why overdo it?

ADRIENNE: Oh, I just thought I'd initiate your Volga Boatman here. He's joining the brotherhood, isn't he? He's got all the earmarks.

SERGE: It is very strange, all this, Miss Knowland, but I think it is beautiful.

ADRIENNE: [Dryly] It is very beautiful.

[FLASH comes back down the stairs]

SERGE: And it is the noble thing — the Breckenridge Theater in the so very vile Fourteenth Street, for the poor people to see the drama. The art brought to the masses, as it should. I have often wondered how Mr. Breckenridge can do it, with the such low prices of the tickets.

INGALLS: He can't. The noble thing costs him a hundred thousand dollars a season, out of his own pocket. SERGE: Miss Knowland?

INGALLS: No, Serge. Not Miss Knowland. The theater. That would have been much more sensible. But Walter never asks anything in return. He discovered her, he built the theater for her, he made her the star of Fourteenth Street, he made her famous — in fact, he made her in every sense but the proper one. Which is outrageous, when you look at Adrienne.

BRECKENRIDGE: Really, Steve!

SERGE: [To INGALLS] You are not able to understand the unselfish action?

INGALLS: No.

SERGE: You do not have the feeling that it is beautiful?

INGALLS: I've never had any beautiful feelings, Serge.

SERGE: [To ADRIENNE] I shall beg your forgiveness, Miss Knowland, since the person who should do so will not.

BRECKENRIDGE: Don't take Steve too seriously, Serge. He's not really as rotten as he sounds at times.

SERGE: By us in Moscow, a gentleman does not insult an artist.

BRECKENRIDGE: Oh, no matter what Steve says, he's always attended her every opening night.

ADRIENNE: [It is almost a scream] He... what?

BRECKENRIDGE: Didn't you know it? Steve's always been there, at every opening of yours — though I never caught him applauding, but the others made up for it; you've never lacked applause, have you, my dear?

ADRIENNE: [She has been looking at INGALLS all through BRECKENRIDGE's speech. She asks, still looking at INGALLS :] Walter... with whom?

BRECKENRIDGE: I beg your pardon?

ADRIENNE: With whom did he come to my openings?

BRECKENRIDGE: How can one ever ask "with whom" about Steve? Alone, of course.

ADRIENNE: [To INGALLS, her voice trembling with anger] You didn't see me in Little Women, did you?

INGALLS: Oh, yes, my dear, I did. You were very sweet and very coy. Particularly the way you let your hands flutter about. Like butterflies.

ADRIENNE: Steve, you didn't-

INGALLS: Yes, I did. I saw you in Peter Pan. You have beautiful legs. I saw you in Daughter of the Slums— very touching when you died of unemployment. I saw you in The Yellow Ticket.

ADRIENNE: Goddamn you, you didn't see that!

INGALLS: I did.

TONY: But, Adrienne, why are you so upset about it? Your greatest hits.

ADRIENNE: [She has not even heard TONY] Why did you go to my openings?

INGALLS: Well, my dear, there could be two explanations: either I'm a masochist or I wanted material for a conversation such as this.

[He turns away from her, the conversation ended, as far as he's concerned. There is a silence. Then FLASH says loudly:]

FLASH: Well, I don't know about you all, but I don't think it was a nice conversation.

TONY: [As FLEMING is about to snap at FLASH] Never mind, Harvey. I'll kill him for you one of these days.

FLEMING: Why in hell should Billy have a moron for a tutor?

BRECKENRIDGE: And why, may I ask, should you exhibit public concern about Billy's tutors, Harvey?

[FLEMING looks at him, then steps back, somehow defeated]

FLASH: [Belligerently] Whom you calling a moron, huh? Whom?

FLEMING: You.

FLASH: [Taken aback] Oh...

BILLY: Father, could I please be taken back to my room?

BRECKENRIDGE: Why, I didn't think you'd want to miss the party, Billy. However, if you prefer —

BILLY: [Indifferently] No. It's all right. I'll stay here.

[Doorbell rings]

TONY: The Dawsons?

BRECKENRIDGE: [Mysteriously] Yes, I think it's time for the Dawsons.

[CURTISS enters Right and crosses to open the door. HELEN BRECKENRIDGE enters. She is a woman of about thirty-six, tall, blond, exquisitely groomed. She is the perfect lady in the best sense of the word and she looks like the picture of a perfect wife who has always been perfectly cared for. She carries a small gift package]

HELEN: [Astonished] Why, Curtiss! What are you doing here?

CURTISS: [Bowing] Good afternoon, madam.

BRECKENRIDGE: Helen, my dear! [Kisses her on the cheek] What a pleasant surprise to see you enter! As a matter of fact, it's always a surprise to me. I can't get used to it — not after sixteen years of married life.

HELEN: [Smiling] Too nice, Walter, much too nice. [To the others] Shall I say "hello" collectively? I'm afraid I'm late and last, as usual.

[The others answer ad-lib greetings. CURTISS whispers something to BRECKENRIDGE, who nods. CURTISS exits Right]

HELEN: [To BILLY] How do you feel, dear? Was the trip too hard?

BILLY: It was all right.

HELEN: I really don't quite see why I wasn't allowed to come down with you.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Smiling] There was a reason, my dear.

HELEN: I had a perfectly beastly time getting away from the city. I envy you, Steve-living right here in Connecticut. You have no idea of the traffic on a holiday eve. Besides, I had to stop at a bookstore — and why is it that they never seem to have any clerks in book-stores? [To BRECKENRIDGE, indicating her package] I bought How Deep the Shadows for Mrs. Dawson. Mrs. Dawson has such a regrettable taste in books. But it was so nice of her — giving this party.

INGALLS: Too nice, Helen, much too nice.

HELEN: Not if it got you out of that laboratory of yours. How long since you last attended a party, Steve?

INGALLS: I'm not sure. Maybe a year.

HELEN: Maybe two?

INGALLS: Possible.

HELEN: But I'm being terribly rude. Shouldn't I say hello to our hostess? Where is our hostess?

[Nobody answers. Then BRECKENRIDGE stepsforward]

BRECKENRIDGE: [His voice gay and solemn at once] Helen, my dear, that is my surprise. You are the hostess. [She looks at him without understanding] You have always wanted a house in the country. This is it. It's yours. I had it built for you. [She stares at him,frozen] Why, my dear, what's the matter?

HELEN: [A smile coming very slowly— and not too naturally — to her face] I... I'm just... speechless... Walter. [The smile improving] You can't expect me not to be a little — overwhelmed, can you?... And I haven't even thanked you yet. I'm late again. I'm always too late... [She looks about, a little helplessly, notices the package in her hand] Well... well, I guess I'll have to read How Deep the Shadows myself. It serves me right.

BRECKENRIDGE: I am fifty years old today, Helen. Fifty. It's a long time. Half a century. And I was just... just vain and human enough to want to mark the occasion. Not for myself — but for others. How can we ever leave a mark — except upon others? This is my gift — to you.

HELEN: Walter... when did you start building it... this house?

BRECKENRIDGE: Oh, almost a year ago. Think of what I've spared you: all the bother and trouble and arguments with architects and contractors, and shopping for furniture and kitchen ranges and bathroom fixtures. Let me tell you, it's a headache and a heartache.

HELEN: Yes, Walter. You have never let me be exposed to a headache or a heartache. You have been very kind... Well... well, I hardly know where to begin... if I'm to be hostess —

BRECKENRIDGE: Everything's taken care of, my dear. Curtiss is here, and Mrs. Pudget is in the kitchen, the dinner is ordered, the drinks are ready, even the soap is in the bathrooms. I wanted you to come and find the party complete — from guests to ashtrays. I planned it that way. I don't want you to exert yourself at all.

HELEN: Well, I suppose that's that...BRECKENRIDGE: [Turning to BILLY] And, Billy, I wouldn't forget you today. Did you see — from the window of your room — that horse out on the lawn?

BILLY: Yes, Father.

BRECKENRIDGE: Well, it's yours. That's your present.

[There's a little gasp — from ADRIENNE]

HELEN: [With shocked reproach] Really, Walter!

BRECKENRIDGE: But why are you all looking at me like that? Don't you understand? If Billy concentrates on how much he would like to be able to ride that horse — it will help him to get well. It will give him a concrete objective for a healthy mental attitude.

BILLY: Yes, Father. Thank you very much, Father.

FLEMING: [Screams suddenly, to BRECKENRIDGE] Goddamn you! You dirty bastard! You lousy, rotten sadist! You —

INGALLS: [Seizing him as he swings out at BRECKENRIDGE] Easy, Harvey. Take it easy.

BRECKENRIDGE: [After a pause, very gently] Harvey... [The kindness of his tone makes FLEMING cringe, almost visibly] I'm sorry, Harvey, that I should be the cause of your feeling as ashamed as you will feel later.

FLEMING: [After a pause, dully] I apologize, Walter... [He turns abruptly, walks to sideboard, pours himself a drink, swallows it, refills the glass. No one is looking at him, except BILLY]

BRECKENRIDGE: It's all right. I understand. I'm your friend, Harvey. I've always been your friend.

[Silence]

FLASH: Well, J think Mr. Fleming is drunk.

[CURTISS enters with a tray bearing filled cocktail glasses]

BRECKENRIDGE: [Brightly] I think Mr. Fleming has the right idea — for the moment. It's time we all had a drink.

[CURTISS passes the cocktails to the guests. When he comes to ADRIENNE he stands waiting politely. She is lost in thought and does not notice him]

Adrienne, my dear...

ADRIENNE: [With a little jerk of returning to reality] What? [Sees CURTISS] Oh... [Takes a glass absently]

BRECKENRIDGE: [Taking the last glass, stands solemnly facing the others] My friends! Not I, but you are to be honored today. Not what I have been, but those whom I have served. You — all of you — are the justification of my existence — for help to one's fellow men is the only justification of anyone's existence. That is why I chose you as my guests today. That is why we shall drink a toast — not to me, but — [Raising his glass] — to you, my friends! [Drinks. The others stand silently]

SERGE: I would so very much like to give the toast also, please?

BRECKENRIDGE: If you wish, Serge.

SERGE: [Fervently] To the man who has his life devoted so that the other men's lives should be better. To the man the genius of whom to the world gave the machine for the Vitamin X separating, which little babies makes so healthier. To the man who the new violet-ray diffuser gave us, so cheaper that the poor people in the slums the sunlight could have. To the man who the electric saw for the surgery invented, which so many lives has saved. To the friend of the mankind — Walter Breckenridge!

INGALLS: Sure. Walter's invented everything but a bust developer for social workers.

FLASH: I think that's in bad taste.

ADRIENNE: [Rising} And now that we've done our duty, may I go up to my room, Walter?

BRECKENRIDGE: Wait, Adrienne, do you mind? There's something I want you all to hear. [To the others] My friends, I have an announcement to make. It is important. I want you to be the first to hear it.

INGALLS: More gifts?

BRECKENRIDGE: Yes, Steve. One more gift. My greatest — and my last. [To the others] My friends! You have heard of the invention on which I have worked for the last ten years — the one Adrienne referred to so charmingly as a "gadget." There has been quite a great deal of mystery about it — unavoidably, as you shall see. It is a device to capture the energy of cosmic rays. You may have heard that cosmic rays possess a tremendous potential of energy, which scientists have struggled to harness for years and years. I was fortunate enough to find the secret of it — with Steve's able assistance, of course. I have been asked so often whether the device is completed. I have refused to answer. But I can say it now: it is completed. It is tried, tested, and proved beyond doubt. Its possibilities are tremendous. [Pauses. Continues, very simply, almost wearily:] Tremendous. And its financial promises are unlimited. [Stops]

INGALLS: Well?

BRECKENRIDGE: Well... My friends, a man controlling such an invention and keeping its secret could be rich. Rich But I am not going to keep it. [Pauses, looks at them, then says slowly:] Tomorrow, at twelve o'clock noon, I shall give this invention to mankind.

Give, not sell it. For all and any to use. Without charge. To all mankind. [TONY emits a long whistle. FLASH stands with his mouth hanging open, and utters only one awed: "Gee!"] Think what that will do. Free power — drawn out of space. It will light the poorest slum and the shack of the sharecropper. It will throw the greedy utility companies out of business. It will be mankind's greatest blessing. And no one will hold private control over it.

ADRIENNE: Beautiful showmanship, Walter. You've always been a master of the theater.

TONY: But I suppose it is sort of grand —

ADRIENNE: — opera.

HELEN: What exactly is to happen tomorrow at noon, Walter?

BRECKENRIDGE: I have invited the press to be at the laboratory tomorrow at noon. I shall give them the blueprints — the formulas — everything — to spread in every tabloid.

ADRIENNE: Don't forget the Sunday magazine sections. BRECKENRIDGE: Adrienne, my dear, surely you don't disapprove?

ADRIENNE: What's it to me?

SERGE: Ah, but it is so beautiful! It is an example for the whole world to follow. To me Mr. Breckenridge has spoken about this gift many weeks ago and I said: "Mr. Breckenridge, if you do this, I will be proud a human being to be!"

BRECKENRIDGE: [Turning to INGALLS] Steve?

INGALLS: What?

BRECKENRIDGE: What do you say?

INGALLS: I? Nothing.

BRECKENRIDGE: Of course, Steve doesn't quite approve. Steve is rather... old-fashioned. He would have preferred to keep the whole thing secret in our own hands, and to make a tremendous fortune. Wouldn't you, Steve?

INGALLS: [Lazily] Oh, yes. I like to make money. I think money is a wonderful thing. I don't see what's wrong with making a fortune — if you deserve it and people are willing to pay for what you offer them. Besides, I've never liked things that are given away. When you get something for nothing — you always find a string attached somewhere. Like the fish when it swallows the worm. But then, I've never had any noble feelings.

SERGE: Mr. Ingalls, that is contemptible!

INGALLS: Cut it, Serge. You bore me.

BRECKENRIDGE: But, Steve, I want you to understand why —

INGALLS: Don't waste your time, Walter. I've never understood the noble, the selfless, or any of those things. Besides, it's not my fortune you're giving away. It's yours. I'm only a junior partner. All I lose is two bits to your dollar. So I'm not going to argue about it.

BRECKENRIDGE: I'm glad, Steve. I made this decision after a great deal of time and meditation.

INGALLS: You did? [Rises] You know, Walter, I think decisions are made quickly. And the more important the step — the quicker. [Walks to stairs]

SERGE: [With a little touch of triumph] I begged Mr. Breckenridge to do this.

INGALLS: [Stops on the stairs on his way up, looks at him. Then:] I know you did. [Exits up the stairs]

HELEN: [Rising] It seems so foolish to ask this — when I'm hostess — but what time is dinner ordered for, Walter?

BRECKENRIDGE: Seven o'clock.

HELEN: Would you mind if I took a look at what my house is like?

BRECKENRIDGE: But of course! How thoughtless of me! Holding you here — when you must be dying of curiosity.

HELEN: [To the others] Shall we make an inspection tour together? The hostess needs someone to guide her.

TONY: I'll show you. I've been all through the house. The laundry in the basement is wonderful.

HELEN: Shall we start with Billy’s room?

BILLY: Yes, please, Mother. I want to go back to my room.

[As FLEMING and FLASH are wheeling BILLY out, Right, BRECKENRIDGE is about to follow]

ADRIENNE: Walter. I'd like to speak to you. [BRECKENRIDGE stops, frowning] For just a few minutes. BRECKENRIDGE: Yes, of course, my dear.

[HELEN and TONY exit after BILLY, FLEMING, and FLASH. SERGE remains]

ADRIENNE: Serge, when you hear someone say to someone else: "I'd like to speak to you" — it usually means "alone."

SERGE: Ah, but of course! I am so sorry, Miss Knowland! [Bows and exits Right]

BRECKENRIDGE: [Sitting down and indicating a chair] Yes, my dear?

ADRIENNE: [She remains standing, looking at him. After a moment, she says in a flat, hard, expressionless voice:] Walter, I want you to release me from my contract.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Leans back. Then:] You're not serious, my dear.

ADRIENNE: Walter, please. Please don't make me say too much. I can't tell you how serious I am.

BRECKENRIDGE: But I thought it was understood, a year ago, that we would not discuss that subject again.

ADRIENNE: And I've stuck it out, haven't I? For another whole year. I've tried. Walter. I can't go on.

BRECKENRIDGE: You are not happy?

ADRIENNE: Don't make me say anything else.

BRECKENRIDGE: But I don't understand. I -

ADRIENNE: Walter. I'm trying so hard not to have another scene like last year. Don't ask me any questions. Just say that you will release me.

BRECKENRIDGE: [After a pause] If I released you, what would you do?

ADRIENNE: That play I showed you last year.

BRECKENRIDGE: For a commercial producer?

ADRIENNE: Yes.

BRECKENRIDGE: For a cheap, vulgar, commercial Broadway producer?

ADRIENNE: For the cheapest and most vulgar one I could find.

BRECKENRIDGE: Let's see. If I remember correctly, your part would be that of a very objectionable young woman who wants to get rich, who drinks and swears and —

ADRIENNE: [Coming to life] And how she swears! And she sleeps with men! And she's ambitious! And she's selfish! And she laughs! And she's not sweet — Oh, Walter! She's not sweet at all!

BRECKENRIDGE: You're overestimating yourself, my dear. You can't play a part like that.

ADRIENNE: Maybe not. I'll try.

BRECKENRIDGE: You want a disastrous flop?

ADRIENNE: Perhaps. I'll take the chance.

BRECKENRIDGE: You want to be panned?

ADRIENNE: Perhaps. If I have to be.

BRECKENRIDGE: And your audience? What about your audience? [She doesn't answer] What about the people who love you and respect you for what you represent to them?

ADRIENNE: [Her voice flat and dead again] Walter, skip that. Skip that BRECKENRIDGE: But you seem to have forgotten. The Breckenridge Theater is not a mere place of amusement. It was not created just to satisfy your exhibitionism or my vanity. It has a social mission. It brings cheer to those who need it most. It gives them what they like. They need you. They get a great deal from you. You have a duty and a standing above those of a mere actress. Isn't that precious to you?

ADRIENNE: Oh, Goddamn you! [He stares at her] All right! You asked for it! I hate it! Do you hear me? I hate it! All of it! Your noble theater and your noble plays and all the cheap, trite, trashy, simpering bromides that are so sweet! So sweet! God, so sweet I can hear them grating on my teeth every evening! I'm going to scream in the middle of one of those noble speeches, some night, and bring the curtain down! I can't go on with it, Goddamn you and your audience! I can't! Do you understand me? I can't!

BRECKENRIDGE: Adrienne, my child, I cannot let you ruin yourself.

ADRIENNE: Listen, Walter, please listen... I'll try to explain it. I'm not ungrateful. I want the audience to like me. But that's not enough. Just to do what they want me to do, just because they like it — it's not enough. I've got to like it, too. I've got to believe in what I'm doing. I've got to be proud of it. You can't do any kind of work without that. That comes first. Then you take a chance — and hope that others will like it.

BRECKENRIDGE: Isn't that rather selfish?

ADRIENNE: [Simply] I guess it is. I guess I'm selfish. It's selfish to breathe, also — isn't it? You don't breathe for anyone but yourself... All I want is a chance — for myself — to do something strong, living, intelligent, difficult — just once.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Sadly] I believed in you, Adrienne. I did my best for you.

ADRIENNE: I know. And I hate to hurt you. That's why I've stood it for such a long time. But, Walter, the contract — it's for five more years. I couldn't take five years. I couldn't even take it for five days this coming season. I've reached my last minute — it's very terrible, when a person is driven to his last minute, and very ugly. You must let me go.

BRECKENRIDGE: Who's been talking to you? Steve's influence?

ADRIENNE: Steve? You know what I think of Steve. When would I talk to him? When do I ever see him?

BRECKENRIDGE: [Shrugging] It just sounds like him.

ADRIENNE: Do you know what made me speak to you today? That stupendous thing you announced. I thought... you're doing so much for humanity, and yet... why is it that the people who worry most about mankind have the least concern for any actual human being?

BRECKENRIDGE: My dear, try to understand. I'm acting for your own good. I can't let you ruin your career.

ADRIENNE: Let me go, Walter. Give me my freedom.

BRECKENRIDGE: Freedom — for what? Freedom to hurt yourself.

ADRIENNE: Yes! — if necessary. To make mistakes. To fail. To be alone. To be rotten. To be selfish. But to be free.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Rising] No, Adrienne.

ADRIENNE: [In a dead, flat voice] Walter... do you remember... last summer... when I ran my car into a tree?... Walter, it was not an accident...

BRECKENRIDGE: [Severely] I refuse to understand what you mean. You're being indecent.

ADRIENNE: [Screams] Goddamn you! Goddamn you, you rotten, holy, saintly bastard!

INGALLS: [Appearing at the top of the stairs] You'll ruin your voice, Adrienne — and you won't be able to do Little Women again.

[ADRIENNE whirls around and stops short]

BRECKENRIDGE: [As INGALLS comes down the stairs] I believe this is the kind of performance you'll enjoy, Steve. So I'll leave Adrienne to you. You'll find you have a great deal in common. [Exits Right]

INGALLS: The acoustics in this room are great, Adrienne. Does wonders for your diaphragm — and your vocabulary.

ADRIENNE: [Stands looking at him with hatred] Listen, you. I have something to tell you. Now. I don't care. If you want to make wisecracks, I'll give you something real to wisecrack about.

INGALLS: Go ahead.

ADRIENNE: I know what you think of me — and you're right. I'm just a lousy ham who's done nothing but trash all her life. I'm no better than a slut — not because I haven't any talent, but worse: because I have and sold it. Not even for money, but for someone's stupid, drooling kindness — and I'm more contemptible than an honest whore!

INGALLS: That's a pretty accurate description.

ADRIENNE: Well, that's what I am. I know also what you are. You're a hard, cold, ruthless egoist. You're just a laboratory machine — all chromium and stainless steel. You're as efficient and bright and vicious as a car going ninety miles an hour. Only the car would bump if it ran over someone's body. You wouldn't. You wouldn't even know it. You're going ninety miles every one of the twenty-four hours — through a desert island, as far as you're concerned. A desert island full of charts, blueprints, coils, tubes, and batteries. You've never known a human emotion. You're worse than any of us. I think you're the rottenest person I've ever met. I'm inexcusably, contemptibly, completely in love with you and have been for years. [She stops. He stands motionless, looking at her silently. She snaps:] Well? [He does not move] You're not going to pass up a chance like this for one of your brilliant wisecracks? [He does not move] Shouldn't you answer — something?

INGALLS: [His voice is very soft and very earnest. It is the first sound of simple sincerity to be heard from him:] Adrienne... [She looks at him, astonished] I am thinking that I haven't heard it. I can't answer. Had you said it to me yesterday — or the day after tomorrow — I'd answer. Today, I can't.

ADRIENNE: Why?

INGALLS: You know, sound vibrations never die in space. Let's think that what you said hasn't reached me yet. It will reach me day after tomorrow. Then — if I'm still able to hear it and if you still want me to hear it — I'll give you my answer.

ADRIENNE: Steve... what's the matter?

INGALLS: Day after tomorrow, Adrienne. Perhaps sooner. But if not then — then never.

ADRIENNE: Steve, I don't understa —

INGALLS: [Picking up a magazine from the table, in his normal, conversational tone] Have you seen this week's World? There's a very interesting article on the progressive income tax. It demonstrates how the tax works for the protection of mediocrity... The problem of taxation, of course, is extremely complex.

ADRIENNE: [She is turned away from him, her shoulders sagging a little, but she does her best to follow his lead and speaks obediently, in as good an imitation of a conversational tone as she can manage— but her voice sounds very tired] Yes. I've never been able to figure out an income tax blank or an insurance policy.

[HELEN, BRECKENRIDGE, SERGE, and TONY enter, coming down the stairs]

INGALLS: Well? What do you think of the house, Helen? HELEN: [Without enthusiasm] It's lovely. BRECKENRIDGE: [Proudly] She couldn't think of one thing that I hadn't thought of already.

INGALLS: As usual.

BRECKENRIDGE: Oh say, I mustn't forget. I'll tell you all while Billy isn't here; it's a little surprise for him. Tonight, at ten o'clock, when it gets dark, I shall give you a demonstration of my invention. Its first public demonstration. We'll start celebrating the Fourth of July tonight, a little in advance. We'll have fireworks — I've had them lined up — [Points] — over there, on the other side of the lake. I'll set them off — from the garden — without touching them, without wires, by remote control — by mere electrical impulses through the air.

TONY: Could I see the machine?

BRECKENRIDGE: No, Tony. Nobody can see the machine till tomorrow. Don't try to find it. You won't. But you will all be the first witnesses of its action. [Shrugs gaily] Think of it! If someday they make a movie of my life, you will all be impersonated in that scene.

SERGE: They always make the lives of the great men in the cinema.

INGALLS: All that Walter needs now to be a great man is to get assassinated.

HELEN: Steve!

INGALLS: Well, he came pretty close to it once — so I guess that'll have to do.

HELEN: He... did what?

INGALLS: Didn't you know that Walter almost got bumped off — about a month ago?

HELEN: [Aghast] No!...

INGALLS: Oh, yes. Someone's tried to get him. Under very mysterious circumstances, too.

BRECKENRIDGE: Just an accident, probably. Why talk about it?

HELEN: Please tell me, Steve.

INGALLS: There isn't really much to tell. Walter and Serge drove down to Stamford, one evening, and stopped at the laboratory, and dragged me down here to see the house — the "Dawsons' " house — it was just being finished then. Well, the three of us got separated, looking around, and then I heard a shot — and I saw Walter picking up his hat, with a hole through it. It was a new hat, too.

HELEN: Oh!...

INGALLS: Well, we called the police, and all the building workers were searched, but we never found the man who did it or the gun.

HELEN: But it's fantastic! Walter doesn't have an enemy in the world!

INGALLS: I guess you never can tell.

[FLEMING enters, Right, goes to sideboard, pours himself a drink, and stands drinking, ignoring the others]

HELEN: And then?

INGALLS: That's all... Oh, yes, there was another funny thing. I had a bag in the car — just a small bag with some old junk in it. When we got back to the car, we found the lock of that bag broken open. There was nothing inside that anyone would want, and whoever did it hadn't even looked inside, because the things were just as I'd left them, but the lock was broken. We never figured that out, either.

HELEN: Walter!... Why didn't you tell me about this?

BRECKENRIDGE: That is precisely why, dear — so that you wouldn't be upset, as you are now. Besides, it was nothing- An accident or a crank. I told Curtiss about it — told him not to admit any strangers to the house — but nobody came and nothing happened.

INGALLS: I told Walter that he should carry a gun — just in case — but he wouldn't do it.

HELEN: But you should, Walter!

BRECKENRIDGE: I do. I got one.

INGALLS: I don't believe it. You know, Walter is afraid of guns.

BRECKENRIDGE: Nonsense.

INGALLS: You said so yourself

BRECKENRIDGE: [Indicating cabinet] Look in that drawer.

[INGALLS opens the drawer and takes out the gun]

INGALLS: You're right — for once. [Examining the gun] Nice little job. That will take care of any — emergency.

HELEN: Oh, put it away! I don't like them myself.

[INGALLS replaces the gun in the drawer and closes it]

TONY: It doesn't make sense. A man like Mr. Breckenridge — why would anyone —

BRECKENRIDGE: Of course it doesn't make sense. And I don't see why Steve had to bring that up — today of all days... Well, shall we go on to look at the grounds? Wait till you see the grounds, Helen!

HELEN: [Rising] Yes, of course.

[FLEMING swallows another drink and exits Right]

BRECKENRIDGE: Adrienne, my dear — coming?

ADRIENNE: [In a flat voice] Yes.

BRECKENRIDGE: No hard feelings, of course?

ADRIENNE: No.

BRECKENRIDGE: I knew you'd be all right. I wasn't angry. An actress' temper is like a summer storm.

ADRIENNE: Yes.

[She walks out through the French doors, followed by BRECKENRIDGE, SERGE, and TONY]

HELEN: [Stops at the French doors, turns] Coming, Steve?

[He does not answer and stands looking at her. Then:]

INGALLS: Helen... HELEN: Yes?

INGALLS: You are not happy, are you?

HELEN: [With amused reproach] Steve! That's one of those questions that should never be answered — one way or the other.

INGALLS: I'm asking it only... in self-defense.

HELEN: In... your own defense?

INGALLS: Yes.

HELEN: [Decisively] Don't you think we'd better join the others?

INGALLS: No. [She does not move. She stands looking at him. After a moment, he adds:] You know what I'm going to say.

HELEN: No. I don't know... I don't know... [Involuntarily] I don't want to know...!

INGALLS: I love you, Helen.

HELEN: [Trying to be amused] Really, Steve, we're about ten years too late, aren't we? I'm sure I am. I thought things like that weren't being said anymore. At least... not to me...

BRECKENRIDGE'S VOICE: [Calling from garden] Helen!...

INGALLS: I have wanted to say it for more than ten years.

HELEN: It's too... foolish... and conventional, isn't it? My husband's partner... and... and I'm the perfect wife who's always had everything... INGALLS: Have you?

HELEN:... and you've never seemed to notice that I existed...

INGALLS: Even if I know it's hopeless —

HELEN: Of course it's hopeless... It... it should be hopeless... [There is the sound of voices approaching from the garden. INGALLS moves suddenly to take her in his arms] Steve!... Steve, they're coming back! They're —

[The voices are closer. He stops her words with a violent kiss. Her first movement is to struggle against him, then her body relaxes in surrender, her arms rise to embrace him— very eagerly — just as ADRIENNE, BRECKENRIDGE , SERGE, and TONY enter from the garden. HELEN and INGALLS step apart, she shocked, he perfectly calm. INGALLS is first to break the silence]

INGALLS: I've always wanted to know what one really did at such a moment.

SERGE: [Choking with indignation] This... this... it is monstrous!... It is unspeakable!... It is -

BRECKENRIDGE: [With great poise] Now, Serge. No hysterics please. From anyone. Let us act grown-up. [To HELEN, gently] I'm sorry, Helen. I know this is harder for you than for any of us. I shall try to make it easier, if I can. [Notices ADRIENNE, who looks more stunned and crushed than all the others] What's the matter, Adrienne?

ADRIENNE: [Barely able to answer] Nothing... nothing...

BRECKENRIDGE: Steve, I should like to speak to you alone.

INGALLS: I have wanted to speak to you alone, Walter, for a long time.

CURTAIN

That evening. The room is in semidarkness, with just one lamp burning on a table. At curtain rise, BRECKENRIDGE is sitting in an armchair, a little slumped, looking tired and dejected. SERGE sits on a low hassock— at a little distance, but almost as if he were sitting at BRECKENRIDGE's feet.

SERGE: It is terrible. It is too terrible and I am sick. I cannot help that it should make me sick.

BRECKENRIDGE: You're young, Serge...

SERGE: Is it only the young who have the feeling of decency?

BRECKENRIDGE: It is only the young who condemn...

SERGE: At the dinner... you were... as if nothing had happened... You were magnificent.

BRECKENRIDGE: There's Billy to think about.

SERGE: And now? What is to happen now?

BRECKENRIDGE: Nothing.

SERGE: Nothing?

BRECKENRIDGE: Serge, my position does not allow me to make this public. People believe in me. I cannot have scandal attached to my name. Besides, think what it would do to Helen. Do you suppose I'd do that to her?

SERGE: Mrs. Breckenridge she did not think of you.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Slowly] There's something about it that I can't understand. It's unlike Helen. But it's much more unlike Steve.

SERGE: Mr. Ingalls? Of him I expect anything.

BRECKENRIDGE: That's not what I mean, Serge. It wouldn't surprise me that Steve should be unscrupulous. But that he should be stupid!

SERGE: Stupid?

BRECKENRIDGE: If Steve had wanted to carry on a secret love affair with Helen, he could have done so for years and years, and none of us would ever guess — if he didn't want us to guess. He's clever. He's too terribly clever. But to start... to start an embrace in broad daylight — when he knew we'd be back for her any moment — a fool wouldn't do that. That's what I can't understand.

SERGE: What did he say when you spoke to him?

BRECKENRIDGE: [Evasively] We spoke of... many things.

SERGE: I cannot understand that this to you should happen! The gratitude it does not exist in the world.

BRECKENRIDGE: Ah, Serge. We must never think of gratitude. We must do what we think is good for our fellow men — and let kindness be its own reward. [FLASH enters Right, wheeling BILLY in, followed by FLEMING and HELEN. BRECKENRIDGE rises]

BILLY: You wanted me here, Father?

BRECKENRIDGE: Yes, Billy. Not too tired?

BILLY: No.

BRECKENRIDGE: [To HELEN, indicating his chair] Sit down, my dear. This is the most comfortable chair in the room. [HELEN obeys silently. INGALLS enters from the garden and remains standing at the French doors] But why are we sitting in the dark like this? [Turns more lights on] Your dress is so light, Helen. It's rather chilly tonight for this time of the year. Are you sure you're not too cold?

HELEN: No.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Offering her a cigarette box] Cigarette, my dear?

HELEN: No, thank you.

INGALLS: [Without moving] You're exceptionally rotten tonight, Walter. Worse than usual.

BRECKENRIDGE: I beg your pardon? [ADRIENNE enters, coming down the stairs, but stops and stands watching those below]

INGALLS: You know what I'd do if I were you? I'd yell at Helen at the slightest provocation or without any. I'd swear at her. I think I'd slap her. BRECKENRIDGE: You would.

INGALLS: And do you know what the result would be? It would make things easier for her.

HELEN: Please, Steve.

INGALLS: I'm sorry, Helen... I'm terribly sorry.

[Silence. ADRIENNE comes down the stairs. At the bottom, she stops: she sees INGALLS looking at her. For a moment they stand face to face, holding the glance. Then she turns sharply and goes to sit down alone in a corner of the room]

FLASH: [Looking helplessly at everybody] What the hell is going on in this house?

BRECKENRIDGE: Flash. You are not to swear in Billy's presence.

FLASH: Gee, I beg your pardon. But I feel something. You may not know it, but I'm sensitive.

SERGE: By us in Moscow, things like this would not happen.

INGALLS: [Casually] Say, Serge, I heard something interesting today about some compatriots of yours. About the Soviet Culture and Friendship Society.

SERGE: [Looks at him. for a distinct moment, then:] So? What did you hear?

INGALLS: That the FBI has caught up with them. Seems they're just a front for Soviet espionage in this country. One of the biggest fronts. Heard the FBI has cracked down on them and seized their files.

SERGE: When? That is not true!

INGALLS: Today.

SERGE: I do not believe it!

INGALLS: It ought to be in the papers — by now. I got a tip from my old friend Joe Cheeseman of the New York Courier — the Courier was first to get the story — he said it would be on their front page this afternoon.

BRECKENRIDGE: Never knew you had friends among the press.

SERGE: Do you have the today's Courier?

INGALLS: No.

SERGE: [To the others] Has anybody the-

INGALLS: Why are you so interested, Serge? What do you know about the Soviet Culture and Friendship Society?

SERGE: What do I know! A great deal I know! I know for long time they are the Soviet spies. I knew Makarov, their president, in Moscow. He was one of the worst. When I escaped during the World War Number Two... That is why I escaped — because the men like him they betrayed the people. They had the noble ideals, but the so cruel methods! They did not believe in God. They lost the spirit of our Holy Mother Russia. They lost our beautiful dream of the brotherhood and the equal sharing and the —

BRECKENRIDGE: Don't talk about it, Serge.

SERGE: All the time I am in this country, I wanted to tell the police what I know about Makarov and the Soviet Culture and Friendship Society. But I could not speak. If I open my mouth... [Shudders] You see, my family — they are still in Russia. My mother... and my sister.

FLASH: Gee, Mr. Sookin! That's awful.

SERGE: But if the Soviet Culture and Friendship it got caught now — I'm glad. I'm so glad!... Has anyone the today's Courier here? [All the others answer "No" or shake their heads] But I must see it! Where can I get the New York newspapers?

BRECKENRIDGE: Nowhere around here — at this hour.

INGALLS: In Stamford, Serge.

SERGE: Ah, yes? Then I will go to Stamford.

BRECKENRIDGE: Oh, but Serge! It's a long drive — three quarters of an hour at the least, there and back.

SERGE: But I so much want to read it tonight.

BRECKENRIDGE: You will miss the... the surprise.

SERGE: But you will excuse me, Mr. Breckenridge, no? I will try most quick as I can to be back. Would you permit that I take the car?

BRECKENRIDGE: Certainly, if you insist.

SERGE: [To INGALLS] Where do I find the nearest place with the newspapers?

INGALLS: Just follow the road straight to Stamford. The first drugstore you come to — a little place called Law-ton's, on the corner, near the Breckenridge Laboratories. They have all the papers. Let's see... [Looks at his watch] They get the last city editions at ten o'clock. In fifteen minutes. They'll have them by the time you get there. Joe Cheeseman said it would be in today's last edition.

SERGE: Thank you so much. [To BRECKENRIDGE] You will please excuse me?

BRECKENRIDGE: Sure. [SERGE exits Left]

FLASH: [As no one seems inclined to talk] And another thing that bothers me is why nobody ate any dinner tonight. The lobster was wonderful. [There is the distant sound of a small explosion, and far away, beyond the lake, a rocket rises, bursts in the air and vanishes]

BRECKENRIDGE: Our neighbors across the lake are celebrating early.

BILLY: I want to see it.

BRECKENRIDGE: You'll see something much bigger than this — in a little while.

[FLASH turns the wheelchair toward the French doors. Another rocket goes off in the distance. TONY enters, Left]

TONY: Say, where's Serge going in such a hurry? Just saw him driving off.

BRECKENRIDGE: To Stamford. To get a newspaper.

INGALLS: You haven't got today's Courier by any chance, have you, Tony?

TONY: The Courier? No. [Hesitates, then:] Mr. Breckenridge, could I speak to you? For just a moment. I've tried all day —

BRECKENRIDGE: Well, what is it, Tony? What is it?

TONY: It's... about Billy. I didn't want to — [Looks at BILLY]

FLEMING: About Billy? What?

BRECKENRIDGE: Surely it can't be a secret. Go ahead.

TONY: If you wish. I saw Professor Doyle this morning.

BRECKENRIDGE: Oh, that? You're not going to begin again to —

FLEMING: Doyle? That's the doctor who's taking care of Billy?

TONY: Yes. He's my teacher at college.

FLEMING: What did he say?

BRECKENRIDGE: Really, Tony, I thought we had settled —

FLEMING: What did he say?

TONY: [To BRECKENRIDGE] He said that I must speak to you and beg you on my knees if I have to. He said that if you don't send Billy to Montreal this summer and let Dr. Harlan perform that operation — Billy will never walk again. [FLEMING makes a step forward slowly, ominously]

BRECKENRIDGE: Just a minute, Harvey.

FLEMING: [In a strange, hoarse voice] Why didn't you tell me about this?

BRECKENRIDGE: Because I didn't have to.

TONY: Mr. Fleming, it's Billy's last chance. He's almost fifteen now. If we wait longer, the muscles will become atrophied and it will be too late. Professor Doyle said —

BRECKENRIDGE: Did Professor Doyle say also that we'd risk Billy's life in that operation?

TONY: Yes.

BRECKENRIDGE: That's my answer.

HELEN: Walter, please. Please let's reconsider. Professor Doyle said the risk wasn't too great. It's a small chance against... against the certainty of being a cripple for life!

BRECKENRIDGE: A small chance is too much — where Billy is concerned. I would rather have Billy as he is than take the risk of losing him.

FLEMING: [Screams ferociously] That's going too far, you lousy bastard! You won't get away with this! Goddamn you, not with this! I demand, do you hear me? — I demand that you let them do the operation!

BRECKENRIDGE: You demand? By what right? [FLEMING stands looking at him, helplessness coming almost visibly to his gaunt, slumping figure]

INGALLS: [His voice hard] Do you mind if I don't witness this? [Turns and exits through the French doors] BRECKENRIDGE: I must warn you, Harvey. If we have any more... incidents such as this, I shall be forced to forbid you to visit Billy.

HELEN: Oh, no, Walter!

FLEMING: You... wouldn't do that, Walter? You... you can't.

BRECKENRIDGE: You know very well that I can.

BILLY: [It is the first time that his voice is alive— and desperate] Father! You won't do that! [As BRECKENRIDGE turns to him] Please, Father. I don't mind anything else. I don't have to have the operation. Only you won't... Mr. Fleming, it's all right about the operation. I don't mind.

BRECKENRIDGE: Of course, Billy. And I'm sorry that Harvey upsets you so much. You understand. Anything I do is only for your own good. I wouldn't take a chance on your life with some unproved new method. [As HELEN is about to speak] And so, Helen, we shall consider the matter closed.

[FLEMING turns abruptly. On his way to the stairs, he seizes a bottle from the sideboard and exits up the stairs]

FLASH: Well, I think this is one hell of a birthday party!

BRECKENRIDGE: We mustn't mind poor Harvey. He is an unfortunate case. [Looks at his watch] And now we'll turn to a much more cheerful subject, [Rises] Billy, my dear, just watch the lake. You'll see some-thing interesting in a few minutes. [To the others]

Now, please, I don't want anyone to follow me. I don't want anyone to see how it's done. Not till tomorrow. You'll get the best view from here. [Turns at the French doors] Who knows? Perhaps what you are about to see will be of great importance to all mankind.

[Exits through French doors and walks off Right into the garden]

HELEN: [Rises suddenly as if with a decision taken, starts toward the stairs, then stops and says to the others, vaguely, as an afterthought:] You will excuse me, please?... [Exits up the stairs]

TONY: I'm sorry, Bill. I've tried.

BILLY: It's all right... When you'll be a doctor on your own, Tony, I'll still be... like this. And then I'd like you to be my doctor.

TONY: [With an oddly stressed bitterness] When I'll be... a doctor...

BILLY: Everybody says you'll be a good one. Father says very nice things about you. About your hands, too. He says you have the hands of a great surgeon.

TONY: [Looks at his hands] Yes... he does... doesn't he? [Turns abruptly to go]

FLASH: Say, don't you want to see the fireworks?

TONY: Oh, take your fireworks and shove— [Exits Right]

FLASH: [Looking after him with open mouth] Well, I think he meant...

ADRIENNE: Yes, Flash. He meant exactly what you think.

[From offstage Right there comes the sound of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G Minor played on the piano]

BILLY: Don't go, Miss Knowland. Everybody's going.

ADRIENNE: I'll stay, Bill. Let's open the doors and turn out the light, we'll see better. [She turns the light off, while FLASH throws the French doors open]

BILLY: Why does Tony always play such sad things?

ADRIENNE: Because he's very unhappy, Bill.

FLASH: You know, I can't figure it out. Nobody's happy in this house.

BILLY: Father is happy. [A magnificent rocket rises over the lake, much closer than the ones we've seen, and bursts into showers of stars]

FLASH: There it goes!

BILLY: Oh!... [The rockets continue at slow intervals]

FLASH: [Excitedly, between the sounds of the explosions] You see, Billy... you see... that's your father's new invention!... It works!... Those rockets are set off without any wires... without touching them... just like that, through space... Imagine? Just some sort of tiny little rays blasting those things to pieces!

ADRIENNE: Lovely precision... right on target... What if one chose a larger... [Then, suddenly, she gasps; it is almost a stifled scream]

FLASH: What's the matter?

ADRIENNE: [In a strange voice] I... just thought of something... [She is suddenly panicky, as she makes a movement to rush out, stops helplessly before the vast darkness of the garden, whirls around to ask:] Where's Walter? Where did he go?

FLASH: I don't know. We're not supposed to follow him.

ADRIENNE: Where's Steve?

FLASH: Don't know. I think he went out.

ADRIENNE: [Screaming into the garden] Steve!... Steve!...

FLASH: He won't hear you. This place is so big, there's miles and miles to the grounds, you can't find anybody out there at night.

ADRIENNE: I've got to -

BILLY: Look, Miss Knowland! Look!

[The fireworks are now forming letters, high over the lake, taking shape gradually, one tiny dot of light after another. The letters spell out: "GOD BLESS..."]

ADRIENNE: I've got to find Walter!

FLASH: Miss Knowland! Don't! Mr. Breckenridge will be angry!

[ADRIENNE rushes out and disappears Left into the garden. The fireworks continue to spell: "GOD BLESS AMER..." Then, suddenly, the last dot of light flashes on with a jerk, spreads out, the letters tremble, smear, and vanish altogether. There is nothing but darkness and silence]

Well!... what's the matter?... What happened?... [They wait. Nothing happens] Well, I guess maybe the invention's not right yet. Something's gone screwy there. Maybe the great discovery's not so perfect...

BILLY: It will start again in a minute.

FLASH: Maybe the old-fashioned way is best. [They wait. Nothing happens] Say, Bill. What's the matter with everybody in this house?

BILLY: Nothing.

FLASH: I can't figure it out. You're the nicest people I ever lived with. But there's something wrong. Very wrong.

BILLY: Skip it, Flash.

FLASH: Now take you, for instance. That operation. You wanted it pretty badly?

BILLY: I guess maybe I did... I don't know... I don't know how it really feels to want things. I've been trying to learn not to.

FLASH: Bill, what do you want most in the world?

BILLY: I?... [Thinks for a moment, then:] I guess... I guess to get a glass of water.

FLASH: What? Want me to get you a drink?

BILLY: No. You don't understand. To get a glass of water myself. [FLASH stares at him] You see what I mean? To get thirsty and not to have to tell anybody about it, but to walk down to the kitchen, and turn the faucet, and fill a glass, and drink it. Not to need anybody, not to thank anybody, not to ask for it. To get it. Flash. You don't know how important it is not to need anybody.

FLASH: But people want to help you.

BILLY: Flash, when it's everything, all the time, everything I do... I can't be thirsty alone, without telling somebody. I can't be hungry alone. I'm not a person. I'm only something being helped... If I could stand up just once stand up on my own feet and tell them all to go to hell! Oh, Flash, I wouldn't tell them to! But just to know that I could! Just once!

FLASH: Well, what for, if you wouldn't? You don't make sense. People are very kind to you and — [There is the sound of a distant explosion in the garden] There! There it goes again! [Looks out. There is nothing but darkness] No. Guess it was a dud.

BILLY: They're kind to me. It's such a horrible thing that sort of kindness. Sometimes I want to be nasty just to have somebody snap at me. But they won't. They don't respect me enough to get angry. I'm not important enough to resent. I'm only something to be kind to.

FLASH: Listen, how about that glass of water? Do you want me to get it or don't you?

BILLY: [His head dropping, his voice dull] Yes. Get me a glass of water.

FLASH: Look, water's not good for you. How about my fixing you some nice hot chocolate and a little toast?

BILLY: Yes.

FLASH: That's what I said: nobody ate anything tonight. All that grand dinner going to waste. It's a crazy house. [Turns at the door] Want the light on?

BILLY: No. [FLASH exits Right. BILLY sits alone for a moment, without moving, his head down. INGALLS enters from the garden]

INGALLS: Hello, Bill. What are you doing here alone in the dark? [Switches the light on] The fireworks over?

BILLY: Something went wrong. They stopped.

INGALLS: Oh? Where's Walter?

BILLY: Fixing it, I guess. He hasn't come back. [As INGALLS turns to the stairs] Steve.

INGALLS: Yes?

BILLY: Steve, do you know why I like you?... Because you've never been kind to me.

INGALLS: But I want to be kind to you, kid.

BILLY: That's not what I mean. You couldn't be what... what I'm talking about. I mean, people who use kindness like some sort of weapon... Steve! It's a horrible weapon. I think it's worse than poison gas. It gets in deeper, it hurts more, and there's no gas mask to wear against it. Because people would say you're wicked to want such a mask.

INGALLS: Bill. Listen to me. It doesn't matter. Even your legs and the wheelchair — it doesn't matter, so long as you don't let anyone into your mind. Keep your mind, Bill — keep it free and keep it your own. Don't let anyone help you — inside. Don't let anyone tell you what you must think. Don't let anyone tell you what you must feel. Don't ever let them put your soul in a wheelchair. Then you'll be all right, no matter what they do.

BILLY: You understand. Steve, you're the only one who understands. [FLASH enters Right]

FLASH: Come on, Bill. The grub's ready. Do you want it here?

BILLY: I'm not hungry. Take me to my room, please. I'm tired.

FLASH: Aw, hell! After I went to all the bother —

BILLY: Please, Flash. [FLASH starts wheeling the chair out] Good night, Steve.

INGALLS: Good night, kid. [FLASH and BILLY exit, and we hear TONY's voice in the next room]

TONY'S VOICE: Going, Billy? Good night.

BILLY'S VOICE: Good night. [TONY enters Right]

TONY: What about the great fireworks? All over?

INGALLS: I guess so. Billy said something went wrong.

TONY: You didn't watch them?

INGALLS: No.

TONY: I didn't either.

[HELEN appears at the top of the stairs. She has her hat and coat on, and carries a small suitcase. She stops short, seeing the two men below, then comes resolutely down the stairs]

INGALLS: Helen? Where are you going?

HELEN: Back to town.

TONY: Now?

HELEN: Yes.

INGALLS: But, Helen -

HELEN: Please don't ask me any questions. I didn't know that someone would still be here. I wanted to... I wanted not to have to talk to anyone.

INGALLS: But what's happened?

HELEN: Later, Steve. Later. I'll talk to you afterward. Tomorrow, in town, if you wish. I'll explain. Please don't —

[From a distance in the garden there comes ADRIENNE's scream— a horrified scream. They whirl to the French doors]

INGALLS: Where's Adrienne?

HELEN: I don't know. She-

[INGALLS rushes out into the garden. TONY follows him. FLASH comes running in, Right]

FLASH: What was that?

HELEN: I... don't... know...

FLASH: Miss Knowland! It's Miss Knowland! [CURTISS enters Right]

CURTISS: Madam! What happened!

[INGALLS, TONY, and ADRIENNE enter from the garden.

INGALLS is supporting ADRIENNE. She is trembling and out of breath]

INGALLS: All right. Take it easy. Now what is it?

ADRIENNE: It's Walter... out there... in the garden... He's dead. [Silence, as they all look at her] It was dark... I couldn't see... He was lying on his face... And then I ran... I think he's shot... [HELEN gasps and sinks into a chair]

INGALLS: Did you touch anything?

ADRIENNE: No... no...

INGALLS: Curtiss.

CURTISS: Yes, sir?

INGALLS: Go down there. Stand by. Don't touch anything. And don't let anyone near.

CURTISS: Yes, sir.

ADRIENNE: [Pointing] There... to the left... down the path... [CURTISS exits into the garden]

INGALLS: Tony, take Helen to her room. Flash, go to Billy. Don't tell him. Put him to bed.

FLASH: Y-yes, sir.

[Exits Right. TONY helps HELEN up the stairs and they exit, while INGALLS reaches for the telephone]

ADRIENNE: Steve! What are you doing?

INGALLS: [Into phone] Operator?...

ADRIENNE: Steve! Wait!

INGALLS: [Into phone] Give me District Attorney Hastings.

ADRIENNE: No!... Wait!... Steve, I-

INGALLS: [Into phone] Hello, Greg? Steve Ingalls speaking. From the house of Walter Breckenridge. Mr. Breckenridge has been — [ADRIENNE seizes his arm. He pushes her aside, not violently, but firmly] — murdered... Yes... Yes, I shall... Yes, the new house... [Hangs up]

ADRIENNE: Steve... you wouldn't let me tell you...

INGALLS: Well? What is it?

ADRIENNE: [Fulls a man's handkerchief from her pocket and hands it to him] This. [He looks at the initials on the handkerchief] It's yours.

INGALLS: Yes.

ADRIENNE: It was caught on a branch — there — near the... body.

INGALLS: [Looks at the handkerchief then at her] It's good evidence, Adrienne. [Slips the handkerchief calmly into his pocket] It's evidence that you still love me — in spite of everything — in spite of what happened this afternoon.

ADRIENNE: [Stiffening] Merely circumstantial evidence.

INGALLS: Oh, yes. But one can do a lot with circumstantial evidence.

CURTAIN

Half an hour later. Before the curtain rises we hear the sound of Chopin's "Butterfly Etude" played on the piano. It is played violently, exultantly— the gay notes dancing in laughter and release. The music continues as the curtain rises.

STEVE INGALLS is alone on stage. He is pacing the room impatiently; he glances at his wristwatch. Then there is the sound of a car driving up. He looks out. He walks to the entrance door Left and throws it open suddenly, at the right moment, before the bell is rung. SERGE stands outside.

SERGE: [As he enters, angrily] How thoughtful of you. [Pulls the Courier out of his pocket and throws it to him] There is nothing in the Courier about the Soviet Culture and Friendship Society. Or the FBI.

INGALLS: No?

SERGE: No! I make all the long trip for nothing.

INGALLS: [Glancing through the paper] Guess Joe Cheeseman gave me the wrong dope.

SERGE: And where is everybody? [INGALLS slips the paper into his pocket and doesn't answer] Why is it in the house all the windows dark? [INGALLS stands watching him silently] What is the matter?

INGALLS: Serge.

SERGE: Yes?

INGALLS: Mr. Breckenridge has been murdered.

SERGE: [Stands stock-still for a long moment, then emits one short, sick gasp like a moan. Then snaps hoarsely and crudely:] You are crazy!...

INGALLS: [Without moving] Mr. Breckenridge is lying dead in the garden.

SERGE: [Sinks down into a chair, his head in his hands, and moans] Boje moy!... Boje moy!...

INGALLS: Save it for the others, Serge. Save it for an audience.

SERGE: [Jerks his head up, his voice harsh and deadly] Who did it?

INGALLS: You. Or I. Or any of us.

SERGE: [Jumping up, ferociously] I?!

INGALLS: Pipe down, Serge. You see, it's the one question that none of us must ask under the circumstances. Leave that to Greg Hastings.

SERGE: Who?

INGALLS: Greg Hastings. The district attorney. He will be here any moment. I'm sure he'll answer your question. He always does.

SERGE: I hope he's good, I hope

INGALLS: He's very good. Not one unsolved murder in his whole career. You see, he doesn't believe that there can be such a thing as a perfect crime.

SERGE: I hope he should find the monster, the fiend, the unspeakable —

INGALLS: Let me give you a tip, Serge. Cut down on that kind of stuff around Greg Hastings. I know him quite well. He won't fall for the obvious. He'll always look further than that. He's clever. Too clever.

SERGE: [His voice rising angrily] But why do you say this to me? Why do you look at me? You do not think that I...

INGALLS: I haven't even begun to think, Serge. [TONY enters Right]

TONY: [Gaily] The cops arrived? [Sees SERGE] Oh, it's you, Serge, old boy, old pal.

SERGE: [Startled] I beg your pardon?

TONY: You look wonderful. The ride's done you good. It's wonderful to drive fast at night, against the wind, with nothing to stop you! To drive fast, so fast — and free!

SERGE: [Aghast] But what is this? [Whirls on INGALLS] Oh, I see! It was the joke. It was the horrible joke from you... [To TONY] Mr. Breckenridge he is not dead?

TONY: [Lightly] Oh yes, Mr. Breckenridge is dead. Dead as a doornail. Dead as a tombstone. Good and dead.

SERGE: [To INGALLS] He has lost his mind!

INGALLS: Or just found it. [HELEN enters, coming down the stairs]

HELEN: Tony, why did you —

SERGE: Oh, Mrs. Breckenridge! Permit me to express the deepest sympathy at this terrible —

HELEN: Thank you, Serge. [Her manner is now simple, young, more natural than it has ever been] Why did you stop playing, Tony? It was so lovely. I've never heard you play like this before.

TONY: But you will hear me again. You will — for years — and years — and years — [INGALLS exits up the stairs] SERGE: Mrs. Breckenridge —

HELEN: I will give you a piano, Tony. Now. Tomorrow.

[There is the distant sound of a police siren approaching. SERGE looks up nervously. The others pay no attention]

TONY: You won't give me a piano! Nobody's going to give me anything ever again! I think I can get a job at Gimbel's, and I will, and I'll save three dollars a week, and in a year I'll have a piano — a good, secondhand piano of my own!... But I like you, Helen.

HELEN: Yes. Forgive me.

SERGE: Mrs. Breckenridge!... What has happened? HELEN: We don't know, Serge.

TONY: What's the difference?

SERGE: But who did it?

TONY: Who cares?

[Doorbell rings. TONY opens the door. GREGORY HASTINGS enters. He is a man in his early forties, toll, suave, distinguished, and self-possessed. He enters calmly, he speaks quietly, as naturally and undramatically as possible— without overdoing it. He enters, stops, looks at HELEN]

HASTINGS: Mrs. Breckenridge?

HELEN: Yes.

HASTINGS: [Bowing] Gregory Hastings.

HELEN: How do you do, Mr. Hastings.

HASTINGS: I am truly sorry, Mrs. Breckenridge, that I should have to be here tonight.

HELEN: We'll be glad to help you in any way we can, Mr. Hastings. If you wish to question us —

HASTINGS: A little later. First, I shall have to see the scene of —

HELEN: [Pointing] In the garden... Tony, will you show —

HASTINGS: It won't be necessary. I'll keep my men out of your way as much as possible. [Exits Left]

TONY: This is going to be interesting.

SERGE: But... you are inhuman!

TONY: Probably. [INGALLS enters, coming down the stairs] INGALLS: Was that Greg Hastings?

TONY: Yes. The police.

INGALLS: Where are they?

TONY: [Pointing to garden] Sniffing at footprints, I guess.

SERGE: There will not be any footprints. There will not be anything. It is going to be terrible.

INGALLS: How do you know there won't be anything, Serge?

SERGE: There never is in a case like this.

INGALLS: You never can tell. [Pulls the Courier out of his pocket] Anyone here want the evening paper that Serge was nice enough to bring us?

TONY: [Taking the paper] Does the Courier have any comic strips? I love comic strips. [Turns the paper to the fanny page] They don't have "Little Orphan Annie," though. That's my favorite — "Little Orphan Annie."

HELEN: [Looking over his shoulder] I like "Popeye the Sailor."

TONY: Oh, no! Annie's better. But Popeye has his points — particularly when they bring in Mr. Wimpy. Mr. Wimpy is good.

HELEN: Lord Plushbottom is good, too.

TONY: Lord Plushbottom is from another strip.

SERGE: That's what I drive the three-quarters of an hour for!

HELEN: Oh, yes, Serge, wasn't there some story you wanted to read?

SERGE: There was! But there isn't! Not a word in the damn paper about the Soviet Culture and Friendship Society!

TONY: And not even "Little Orphan Annie" or "Popeye the Sailor."

[FLEMING comes down the stairs. He is sober and walks calmly, steadily. There is an air about him as if he were holding his head up for the first time in his life. His clothes are still disreputable, but he is shaved and his tie is straight]

FLEMING: Steve, you won't — by any chance — need a janitor down at the laboratory?

INGALLS: No. But we will need an engineer.

FLEMING: A has-been engineer?

INGALLS: No. A shall-be engineer.

FLEMING: [Looks at him, then in a low voice:] Steve, you're —

INGALLS: — a cold-blooded egoist. I've never been called anything else. I wouldn't know what to do if I were. Let it go at that.

FLEMING: [Nods slowly, solemnly. Then sits down and picks up part of the newspaper] The police are out there in the garden. Guess they'll want us all here. INGALLS: Yes, it won't be long now.

SERGE: [Walks to sideboard, pours himself a drink] Do you want a drink, Mr. Fleming?

FLEMING: [With slow emphasis] No, thank you.

SERGE: [Swallows a stiff drink in one gulp. Then:] The laboratory — who will run it now?

INGALLS: I will.

SERGE: And... what is to happen to the invention?

INGALLS: Ah, yes, the invention. Well, Serge, only two men knew the secret of that invention — Walter and I. Walter is dead.

SERGE: He wanted to give it to mankind.

INGALLS: He did. Now I'm going to sit and loaf and collect a fortune. It's too bad about mankind.

SERGE: You have no respect for the wishes of a —

INGALLS: I have no respect for anything, Serge.

SERGE: [Cautiously] But if you should now carry out the wish of Mr. Breckenridge — then perhaps the police will not think that you had a reason to kill him.

INGALLS: Oh, but Serge! You wouldn't suggest that I try to deceive the police, would you? [HASTINGS enters from the garden. His face looks earnest]

HASTINGS: Mrs. Breckenridge... [Sees INGALLS] Oh, hello, Steve.

INGALLS: Hello, Greg.

HASTINGS: I'm glad you're here. It will make things easier for me.

INGALLS: Or harder — if I did it.

HASTINGS: Or hopeless, if you did it. But I know one or two things already which seem to let you out. [To HELEN] Mrs. Breckenridge, I'm sorry, but certain facts make it necessary for everyone here to be fingerprinted.

HELEN: Of course. I'm sure none of us will object.

HASTINGS: If you will please ask everybody to step into the library — my assistant is there with the necessary equipment. After that I should like to have everybody here.

HELEN: Very well.

HASTINGS: Steve, will you please go down there — [Points to the garden] — and take a look at that electrical apparatus that Breckenridge was operating? I have the butler's statement about the invention and the fireworks display that was interrupted. I want to know what interrupted it. I want you to tell me whether that machine is out of order in any way.

INGALLS: Will you take my word for it?

HASTINGS: I'll have to. You're the only one who can tell us. Besides, my men are there and they'll be watching you. But first, come to the library and get fingerprinted.

INGALLS: All right.

[They all exit, Right. HELEN is the last to go. She turns out the lights, then follows the others. The stage is dark and empty for a few moments. Then a man's figure enters Right. We cannot see who it is. The man gathers quickly all the sheets of the newspaper, twists them into one roll, and kneels by the fireplace. He strikes a match and sets fire to the paper. We see his two hands, but nothing else. He lets the paper burn halfway, then blows out the fire. Then he rises and exits Right]

[After a moment, HELEN and HASTINGS come back, Right. HELEN turns on the light. We can see part of the rolled newspaper among the logs in the fireplace]

HASTINGS: May I apologize in advance, Mrs. Breckenridge, for anything that I might have to say or do? I'm afraid this is going to be a difficult case.

HELEN: Will you forgive me if I say that I hope it will be a difficult case?

HASTINGS: You do not wish me to find the murderer?

HELEN: I suppose I should, but... No. I don't.

HASTINGS: It might mean that you know who it is. Or — it could mean something much worse.

HELEN: I don't know who it is. As to the "much worse" — well, we'll all deny that, so I don't think my denial would be worth more than any of the others. [CURTISS enters Right]

CURTISS: Mr. Hastings, could you ask the coroner please to attend to Mrs. Pudget?

HELEN: Good God, Curtiss! You don't mean that Mrs. Pudget has been —

CURTISS: Oh no, madam. But Mrs. Pudget has a bad case of hysterics. [FLEMING and SERGE enter Right]

HASTINGS: What's the matter with her?

CURTISS: She says that she positively refuses to work for people who get murdered.

HASTINGS: All right, ask the coroner to give her a pill. Then come back here.

CURTISS: Yes, sir. [Exits Right]

HASTINGS: [To HELEN] I understand that your son witnessed the fireworks from this room?

HELEN: Yes, I believe so.

HASTINGS: Then I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to have him brought here.

FLEMING: And get him out of bed? At this hour? [HASTINGS looks at him with curiosity]

HELEN: But of course, Harvey. It can't be avoided. It's quite all right. I'll ask Flash to bring him down.

FLEMING: J will. [Exits Right, as TONY enters]

HASTINGS: [To HELEN] Do you know why I think this case is going to be difficult? Because motive is always the most important thing. Motive is the key to any case. And I'm afraid I'll have a hard time finding one single motive among all the people here. I can't imagine any reason for killing a man of Mr. Breckenridge's character.

HELEN: Neither could Walter. And I hope whoever did it told him the reason before he died. [He looks at her, astonished] Yes, I'm really as cruel as that — though I didn't know it before. [ADRIENNE enters Right. She is pale, tense and barely able to control herself]

TONY: I didn't know fingerprinting was as simple as that, did you, Adrienne? Wasn't it fun?

ADRIENNE: [Curtly] No.

TONY: [Taken aback] Oh... I'm sorry, Adrienne... But I thought... you'd be the one to feel better than any of us.

ADRIENNE: [Bitterly] Oh, you did?

HELEN: Adrienne, may I get you a drink?

ADRIENNE: [Looks at her with hatred. Then, to HASTINGS] Get this over with, will you, so I can get out of here?

HASTINGS: I shall try, Miss Knowland. [INGALLS enters from the garden] What about the machine, Steve?

INGALLS: In perfect order.

HASTINGS: Nothing the matter with it?

INGALLS: Nothing.

HASTINGS: Doesn't look as if anybody had tried to monkey with it?

INGALLS: No. [CURTISS enters Right]

HASTINGS: Now, I should like to ask you all to sit down and be as comfortable as we can be under the circumstances. I won't have a stenographer taking down anybody's words or gestures. I shan't need that. Let's just relax and talk sensibly. [To HELEN] Is everybody here now?

HELEN: Yes, except Billy and his tutor and Mr. Fleming.

HASTINGS: Now as to the servants — there are the butler, the cook and her husband, the chauffeur. Is that all?

HELEN: Yes.

HASTINGS: And — who are the nearest neighbors?

HELEN: I... don't know.

INGALLS: The nearest house is two miles away.

HASTINGS: I see. All right. Now we can begin. As you see, I don't believe in conducting an investigation behind closed doors and trying to play people against one another. I prefer to keep everything in the open. I know that none of you will want to talk. But my job requires that I make you talk. So I shall start by giving you all an example. I don't believe it's necessary — though it's usually done — to keep from you the facts in my possession. What for? The murderer knows them — and the others should want to help me. Therefore, I shall tell you what I know so far. [Pauses. Then:] Mr. Breckenridge was shot — in the back. The shot was fired at some distance — there are no powder burns around the wound. The body was lying quite a few steps away from the electrical machine which Mr. Breckenridge was using for the fireworks display. The watch on Mr. Breckenridge's wrist was broken and stopped at four minutes past ten. There was nothing but grass and soft earth where the body had fallen, so the watch crystal could not have been smashed like that by the fall. It looks as if someone stepped on the watch. The gun was lying on the ground, near the machine. Curtiss has identified it as Mr. Breckenridge's own gun. Only one shot had been fired. The gun shows an excellent set of fingerprints. We shall soon know whether they are the prints of anyone here. That's all — so far. Now I should like to-[FLEMING and FLASH enter Right wheeling BILLY in. BILLY wears a bathrobe over his pajamas]

HELEN: This is Billy, Mr. Hastings.

HASTINGS: How do you do, Billy. I'm sorry I had to get you out of bed.

HELEN: [Looks questioningly at FLEMING, who shakes his head. She turns to BILLY, says gently:] Billy, dear, you must try to be calm and grown-up about what I'm going to tell you. It's about Father. You see, dear, there was an accident and... and...

BILLY: You mean he's dead?

HELEN: Yes, dear.

BILLY: You mean he's been murdered?

HELEN: You mustn't say that. We don't know. We're trying to find out what happened.

BILLY: [Very simply] I'm glad. [Silence as they all look at him. Then:]

HASTINGS: [Softly] Why did you say that, Billy?

BILLY: [Very simply] Because he wanted to keep me a cripple.

HASTINGS: [This is too much even for him] Billy... how can you think such a thing?

BILLY: That's all he wanted me for in the first place.

HASTINGS: What do you mean?

BILLY: [In aflat monotone] He wanted a cripple because a cripple has to depend on him. If you spend your time helping people, you've got to have people to help. If everybody were independent, what would happen to the people who've got to help everybody?

FLEMING: [To HASTINGS, angrily] Will you stop this? Ask him whatever you have to ask and let him go.

HASTINGS: [Looks at him, then:] What's your name?

FLEMING: Harvey Fleming.

HASTINGS: [Turns to BILLY] Billy, what made you think that about Mr. Breckenridge?

BILLY: [Looks at him, almost contemptuously, as if the answer were too enormous and too obvious. Then says wearily.] Today, for instance.

HASTINGS: What happened today?

BILLY: They asked him to let me have an operation — the last thing they could do for me or I'd never walk at all. He wouldn't. He wouldn't, even when — [Looks at FLEMING. Stops short]

HASTINGS: [Softly] Even when — what, Billy?

BILLY: That's all.

FLEMING: Say it, kid. It's all right. Even when I cursed him and threatened him.

HASTINGS: You did? [Looks at him, then:] Mr. Fleming, why are you so concerned about Billy?

FLEMING: [Astonished by the question, as if his answer were a well-known fact] Why? Because I'm his father. [HASTINGS turns to look at HELEN] No, not what your dirty mind is thinking. I thought you knew. They all know. Billy's my own legitimate son — and my wife's. My wife is dead. Walter adopted him five years ago. [HASTINGS looks at him, startled. FLEMING takes it for reproach and continues angrily:] Don't tell me I was a Goddamn fool to agree to it. I know I was. But I didn't know it then. How was I to know? [Points at the others] How were any of them to know what would happen to them? I was out of work. My wife had just died. Billy'd had infantile paralysis for a year. I'd have given anything to cure him. I gave all I had to give — I gave him up, when Walter asked to adopt him. Walter was rich. Walter could afford the best doctors. Walter had been so kind to us. When I saw what it really was — it took me two years to begin to guess — there was nothing I could do... nothing... Walter owned him.

HASTINGS: [Slowly] I see.

FLEMING: No, you don't. Do you know that we came from the same small town, Walter and I? That we had no money, neither one of us? That I was the brilliant student in school and Walter hated me for it? That people said I'd be a great engineer, and I'd made a good beginning, only I didn't have Walter's gift for using people? That he wanted to see me down, as far down as a man can go? That he helped me when I was out of work — because he knew it would keep me out of work, because he knew I was drinking — when my wife died — and I didn't care — and it seemed so easy... He knew I'd never work again, when he took the last thing I had away from me — when he took Billy to make it easier for me — to make it easier! If you want to finish a man, just take all burdens — and all goals — away from him!... He gave me money — all these years — and I took it. I took it! [Stops. Then says, in a low, dead voice:] Listen. I didn't kill Walter Breckenridge. But I would have slept prouder — all the rest of my life — if it was I who'd killed him.

HASTINGS: [Turns slowly to HELEN] Mrs. Breckenridge...

HELEN: [Her voice flat, expressionless] It's true. All of it. You see, we couldn't have any children, Walter and I. I had always wanted a child. I remember I told him once — I was watching children playing in a park — I told him that I wanted a child, a child's running feet in the house... Then he adopted Billy... [Silence]

BILLY: [To FLEMING] I didn't want to say anything... Dad... [To HELEN, a little frightened] It's all right, now?

HELEN: [Her voice barely audible] Yes, dear...You know it wasn't I who demanded that you... [She doesn't finish]

BILLY: [To FLEMING] I'm sorry, Dad...

FLEMING: [Puts his hand on BILLY's shoulder, and BILLY buries his face against FLEMING'S arm] It's all right, Bill. Everything will be all right now... [Silence]

HASTINGS: I'm sorry, Mr. Fleming. I almost wish you hadn't told me. Because, you see, you did have a good motive.

FLEMING: [Simply, indifferently] I thought everybody knew I had.

TONY: What of it? He wasn't the only one.

HASTINGS: No? And what is your name?

TONY: Tony Goddard.

HASTINGS: Now, Mr. Goddard, when you make a statement of that kind, you're usually asked to —

TONY: — finish it? What do you suppose I started for? You won't have to question me. I'll tell you. It's very simple. I'm not sure you'll understand, but I don't care. [Stretches his hands out] Look at my hands. Mr. Breckenridge told me that they were the hands of a great surgeon. He told me how much good I could do, how many suffering people I could help — and he gave me a scholarship in a medical college. A very generous scholarship.

HASTINGS: Well?

TONY: That's all. Except that I hate medicine more than anything else in the world. And what I wanted to be was a pianist. [HASTINGS looks at him. TONY continues, calmly, bitterly:] All right, say I was a weakling- Who wouldn't be? I was poor — and very lonely-Nobody had ever taken an interest in me before. Nobody seemed to care whether I lived or died. I had a long struggle ahead of me — and I wasn't even sure that I had any musical talent. How can you ever be sure at the beginning? And the road looks so long and so hopeless — and you're hurt so often. And he told me it was a selfish choice, and that I'd be so much more useful to men as a doctor, and he was so kind to me, and he made it sound so right.

HASTINGS: But why wouldn't he help you through a music school, instead?

TONY: [Looks at him, almost pityingly, like an older man at a child, says wearily, without bitterness:] Why? [Shrugs in resignation] Mr. Hastings, if you want to have men dependent on you, don't allow them to be happy. Happy men are free men.

HASTINGS: But if you were unhappy, why didn't you leave it all? What held you?

TONY: [In the same wise, tired voice] Mr. Hastings, you don't know what a ghastly weapon kindness can be. When you're up against an enemy, you can fight him. But when you're up against a friend, a gentle, kindly, smiling friend — you turn against yourself. You think that you're low and ungrateful. It's the best in you that destroys you. That's what's horrible about it... And it takes you a long time to understand. I think I understood it only today.

HASTINGS: Why?

TONY: I don't know. Everything. The house, the horse, the gift to mankind... [Turns to the others] One of us here is the murderer. I don't know who it is. I hope I never learn — for his sake. But I want him to know that I'm grateful... so terribly grateful... [Silence]

HASTINGS: [Turns to INGALLS] Steve?

INGALLS: Yes?

HASTINGS: What did you think of Walter Breckenridge?

INGALLS: [In a calm, perfectly natural voice] I loathed him in every way and for every reason possible. You can make any motive you wish out of that. [HASTINGS looks at him]

ADRIENNE: Stop staring at him like that. People usually prefer to look at me. Besides, I'm not accustomed to playing a supporting part.

HASTINGS: You, Miss Knowland? But you didn't hate Mr. Breckenridge.

ADRIENNE: No?

HASTINGS: But — why?

ADRIENNE: Because he kept me doing a noble, useful work which I couldn't stand. Because he had a genius for finding people of talent and for the best way of destroying them. Because he held me all right — with a five-year contract. Today, I begged him to let me go. He refused. We had a violent quarrel. Ask Steve. He heard me screaming.

HELEN: Adrienne, I'm so sorry. I didn't know about this.

ADRIENNE: [Looks at her, doesn't answer, turns to HASTINGS] How soon will you allow us to leave? It was bad enough staying here when it was Walter's house. I won't stand it for very long — when it's hers.

HASTINGS: Why, Miss Knowland?

TONY: Adrienne, we don't have to —

ADRIENNE: Oh, what's the difference? He'll hear about it sooner or later, so he might as well have it now. [To HASTINGS] This afternoon, Walter and I and the others came in from the garden just in time to interrupt a love scene, a very beautiful love scene, between Helen and Steve. I've never been able to get any leading man of mine to kiss me like that. [To HELEN] Was Steve as good at it as he looked, my dear? [HELEN stands staring at her, frozen. ADRIENNE whirls to HASTINGS] You didn't know that?

HASTINGS: No. I didn't know either of these two very interesting facts.

ADRIENNE: Two?

HASTINGS: First — the love scene. Second — that it should have impressed you in this particular manner.

ADRIENNE: Well, you know it now.

INGALLS: Adrienne, you'd better stop it.

ADRIENNE: Stop what?

INGALLS: What you're doing.

ADRIENNE: You don't know what I'm doing.

INGALLS: Oh, yes, I think I do.

HASTINGS: Well, I don't know if any of you noticed it, but I've made one mistake about this case already. I thought nobody would want to talk.

INGALLS: I noticed it.

HASTINGS: You would. [Turns to BILLY] Now, Billy, I'll try not to hold you here too long. But you were here in this room all evening, weren't you?

BILLY: Yes.

HASTINGS: Now I want you to tell me everything you remember, who left this room and when.

BILLY: Well, I think... I think Steve left first. When we were talking about the operation. He walked out.

HASTINGS: Where did he go?

BILLY: In the garden.

HASTINGS: Who went next?

BILLY: It was Dad. He went upstairs.

FLASH: And he took a bottle from the sideboard with him.

HASTINGS: You're Billy's tutor, aren't you?

FLASH: Yes. Flash Kozinsky — Stanislaw Kozinsky.

HASTINGS: And you stayed here with Billy all evening?

FLASH: Yes.

HASTINGS: Now who went next?

BILLY: Mr. Breckenridge. He went into the garden. And he said that he didn't want anybody to follow him.

HASTINGS: What time was that?

FLASH: About ten o'clock.

HASTINGS: And then?

FLASH: Then Mrs. Breckenridge got up and said "Excuse me" and went upstairs. And then Tony told me to... to do something with the fireworks which I couldn't possibly do — and went into the library.

BILLY: And then we heard Tony playing the piano in the library.

FLASH: Then the fireworks started — and nobody was there to see it but us two and Miss Knowland. They were very beautiful fireworks, though. And Miss Knowland said that it was lovely, good target shooting, or something like that — and suddenly she kind of screamed and said she had thought of something and wanted to find Mr. Breckenridge right away.

[INGALLS makes a step forward]

HASTINGS: Ah...What did you think of, Miss Knowland?

ADRIENNE: I thought... [Looks at INGALLS. He is watching her]

INGALLS: [Slowly] What did you think of, Adrienne?

ADRIENNE: I thought... I thought that Steve would take advantage of Walter's absence and... and that Steve would be upstairs with Helen, and I wanted to tell Walter about it.

HASTINGS: I see. And what did you do?

ADRIENNE: I went out into the garden — to find Walter.

HASTINGS: And then?

BILLY: Then the fireworks stopped.

HASTINGS: How soon after Miss Knowland left did the fireworks stop?

FLASH: Almost immediately. Almost before she could've been a step away.

HASTINGS: And then?

FLASH: Then we waited, but nothing happened. We just talked and — [Stops. Gasps:] Jesus Christ!

HASTINGS: What is it?

FLASH: Jesus Christ, I think we heard it when Mr. Breckenridge was murdered!

HASTINGS: When?

FLASH: Bill, do you remember the dud? Remember there was a kind of crack outside and I thought the fireworks were starting again, but nothing happened and I said it was a dud?

BILLY: Yes.

CURTISS: I heard it too, Mr. Hastings. But there had been so many rockets outside that I thought nothing of it at the time.

HASTINGS: Now that's interesting. You heard it after the fireworks had stopped?

FLASH: Yes. Quite a bit after. Five minutes or more.

HASTINGS: What happened after that?

BILLY: Nothing. Then Steve came back from the garden, and we talked, and then Flash took me to my room.

HASTINGS: You didn't see Mrs. Breckenridge or Mr. Fleming come back down these stairs while you were here?

BILLY: No.

HASTINGS: Now, Curtiss, you were in the pantry all that time?

CURTISS: Yes, sir. I was polishing the silver.

HASTINGS: Could you see the back stairway from the second floor all the time you were there?

CURTISS: Yes, sir. The pantry door was open.

HASTINGS: Did you see anyone coming down the stairs?

CURTISS: No. sir.

HASTINGS: [To FLEMING] Well, I guess that lets you out.

FLEMING: [Shrugging] Not necessarily. There's a window in my room.

HASTINGS: What were you doing in your room? Getting drunk?

FLEMING: Staying drunk.

HASTINGS: And you, Mrs. Breckenridge, were you in your room?

HELEN: Yes.

HASTINGS: Since I can't see you climbing out of a window, I presume at least that it lets you out.

HELEN: Not necessarily. There's a balcony outside my room with a perfectly functional stairway leading to the garden.

HASTINGS: Oh... What were you doing in your room?

HELEN: Packing.

HASTINGS: What?

HELEN: My suitcase. I wanted to go back to New York.

HASTINGS: Tonight?

HELEN: Yes.

HASTINGS: Why?

HELEN: Because I felt that I couldn't stay in this house. [HASTINGS looks at her. She continues quietly:] Don't you see? I had always wanted a house of my own. I wanted a small, very modern house, simple and healthy, with huge windows and glass brick and clean walls. I wanted to hunt for the latest refrigerators and colored washstands and plastic floor tiles and... I wanted to work on it for months, to plan every bit of it... But I was never allowed to plan anything in my life... [Controls herself. Continues in a matter-of-fact voice:] I was ready to leave. I came downstairs. Steve and Tony were here. I was about to go when we heard Adrienne scream... and... [Finishes with a gesture of her hand, as if to say: "And that was that"]

HASTINGS: I see... Now, Miss Knowland. What were you doing in the garden?

ADRIENNE: I was looking for Walter. But I went in the wrong direction. I went toward the lake. I got lost in the dark. Then I came back and — I found him. Dead. [Looks at HASTINGS, adds:] Of course, I could have been doing anything.

HASTINGS: Is that what you want me to think?

ADRIENNE: I don't care what you think.

HASTINGS: You know, I would think it — if it weren't for one fact. The fireworks stopped too soon after you left. You wouldn't have had the time to get from here to the spot where Mr. Breckenridge was found. And I think it was the murderer who stopped those fireworks — or interrupted Mr. Breckenridge and caused him to stop. Because there's nothing wrong with the machine it-self I think the murderer got there when the fire-works stopped. Perhaps earlier. But not later. [Turns to INGALLS] Now, Steve. What were you doing in the garden?

INGALLS: I have no alibi at all, Greg.

HASTINGS: None?

INGALLS: None. I just went for a walk through the grounds. I saw no one and no one saw me.

HASTINGS: Hm... Now, Mr. Goddard. You were playing the piano in the library?

TONY: Yes.

HASTINGS: [To BILLY and FLASH] How long did you hear him playing? Till after the fireworks stopped?

BILLY: Yes, till quite a bit after.

FLASH: Yes.

HASTINGS: [To TONY] Well, that lets you out.

TONY: Not necessarily. If you look through the phonograph records, you will see that there is one of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G Minor.

HASTINGS: [Leans back in his chair, disgusted] Is there anyone here who does not want to be the murderer?

FLASH: Oh, I don't.

SERGE: I think it is horrible! It is horrible that these people should act like this after the death of their benefactor!

HASTINGS: [Turns to look at him with curiosity. Then, to HELEN:] Who is this gentleman?

HELEN: Mr. Serge Sookin. A friend of my husband's.

HASTINGS: Mr. Sookin, we seem to have forgotten you. Where were you all that time?

SERGE: I was not here at all.

HASTINGS: You weren't?

BILLY: That's right. I forgot him. Mr. Sookin left long before everybody else. He went to Stamford.

HASTINGS: [Interested, to SERGE:] You drove to Stamford?

SERGE: Yes. To get the evening newspaper.

HASTINGS: What newspaper?

SERGE: The Courier.

HASTINGS: What time did you leave?

SERGE: I am not certain, I think it was —

INGALLS: A quarter to ten. I looked at my watch. Remember?

SERGE: That is right. You did.

HASTINGS: When did you get back?

SERGE: Just a few minutes before you arrived here.

HASTINGS: Which was at ten-thirty. Well, you made pretty good time. You couldn't have gotten to Stamford and back any faster than that. I presume you didn't stop anywhere on your way?

SERGE: No.

HASTINGS: Did anyone see you buying that newspaper?

SERGE: No. It was the drugstore, you know, with the newspapers on the box outside the door, and I just took the newspaper and left the five cents. HASTINGS: What drugstore was it?

SERGE: It was... yes, it was called Lawton's.

HASTINGS: You didn't speak to anybody at Lawton's?

SERGE: No. [Begins to understand, looks startled for a second, then laughs suddenly] Oh, but it is funny! HASTINGS: What is?

SERGE: [Very pleased] You see, there is no place between here and the Lawton's drugstore where I could buy a newspaper.

HASTINGS: No, there isn't.

SERGE: And Mr. Ingalls he said that the Lawton's drugstore they do not get the last edition of the Courier until ten o'clock, so I could not have had it with me earlier. And I left here at one quarter to ten. And I came back with the last edition of the Courier. And I could not have waited somewhere till four minutes past ten and killed Mr. Breckenridge, because then I could have only twenty-six minutes to get to Stamford and back, and you say that this would not be possible. And it is funny, because it was Mr. Ingalls who gave me the real alibi like that.

INGALLS: I sincerely regret it.

HASTINGS: Where is the paper you brought, Mr. Sookin?

SERGE: Why, right here... right... [Looks around. Others look also] But that is strange. It was right here. They were reading it.

TONY: That's true. I saw the paper. I read the comic strips.

HASTINGS: It was the Courier?

TONY: Yes.

HASTINGS: Who else saw it here?

INGALLS: I did.

HELEN: I did.

FLEMING: I did, too.

HASTINGS: Did any of you notice whether it was the last edition?

INGALLS: No, I didn't. [The others shake their heads]

HASTINGS: And Mr. Sookin did not seem to mind your reading that paper he brought? He did not seem in a hurry to take it away from you?

HELEN: Why, no.

[INGALLS, TONY, and FLEMING shake their heads] HASTINGS: No. What I'm thinking wouldn't be like Mr. Sookin at all. SERGE: [Still looking for it] But where is it? It was right here. HASTINGS: Did anyone take that paper?

[They all answer "No" or shake their heads]

SERGE: But this is ridicable!

HASTINGS: Oh, I guess we'll find it. Sit down, Mr. Sookin. So you have a perfect alibi... unless, of course, you telephoned to some accomplice to get that paper for you.

SERGE: What?!

HASTINGS: Did anyone see Mr. Sookin using the telephone? [They ad-lib denials] And, of course, there's no other place to phone from, closer than Lawton's. No, I don't really think you phoned, Mr. Sookin. I just mentioned it... How long have you been in this country, Mr. Sookin?

SERGE: I escaped from Russia during the World War Number Two.

HASTINGS: How long have you known Mr. Breckenridge?

SERGE: About three months.

HASTINGS: What do you do for a living?

SERGE: In my country I was a physicist. That is why Mr. Breckenridge he took an interest in me. Now I am unemployed.

HASTINGS: What do you live on?

SERGE: I get from the Refugees' Committee the fifteen dollars each week. It is quite sufficient for me.

HASTINGS: And Mr. Breckenridge didn't help you?

SERGE: Ah, Mr. Breckenridge he offered many times to help me. But money I would not take from him. I wanted to get work. And Mr. Breckenridge wanted to give me the job in his laboratories. But Mr. Ingalls refused.

HASTINGS: Oh? [To INGALLS] Is that right, Steve?

INGALLS: That's right.

HASTINGS: Why did you refuse?

INGALLS: Well, I'll tell you: I don't like people who talk too much about their love for humanity.

HASTINGS: But how could you override Mr. Breckenridge's wish?

INGALLS: That was a condition of our partnership. Walter received seventy-five percent of the profits and he had sole authority over the disposition to be made of our products. But I had sole authority over the work in the laboratory.

HASTINGS: I see... Now tell me, Steve, how many hours a day did you usually spend in the laboratory?

INGALLS: I don't know. About twelve, I guess, on the average.

HASTINGS: Perhaps nearer to sixteen — on the average?

INGALLS: Yes, I guess so.

HASTINGS: And how many hours a day did Mr. Breckenridge spend in the laboratory?

INGALLS: He didn't come to the laboratory every day.

HASTINGS: Well, average it for the year. What would it make per day?

INGALLS: About an hour and a half.

HASTINGS: I see... [Leans back] Well, it's very interesting. Any of you could have committed the murder. Most of you have halfway alibis, the kind that make it possible, but not probable. You're worse off than the rest, Steve. You have no alibi at all. At the other end — there's Mr. Sookin. He has a perfect alibi. [Pauses, then:] Here's what makes it interesting: someone deliberately smashed Mr. Breckenridge's watch. Someone was anxious that there should be no doubt about the time of the murder. Yet the only person who has a good alibi for that particular time is Mr. Sookin — who was, at four minutes past ten, just about driving into Stamford.

SERGE: Well?

HASTINGS: I'm just thinking aloud, Mr. Sookin.

[DIXON enters Right, carrying some papers in his hand. He is an energetic, efficient young man who does not waste much time. He walks to HASTINGS, and puts one paper on the table before him]

DIXON: The statements of the cook and the chauffeur, Chief.

HASTINGS: [With a brief glance at the paper] What do they say?

DIXON: They went to bed at nine o'clock. Saw nothing. Heard nothing — except Curtiss in the pantry.

HASTINGS: Okay.

DIXON: [Handing him the other papers. His voice a little less casual:] And here are the fingerprints off the gun — and another set.

HASTINGS: [Looks carefully at two cards of fingerprints. Then puts them on the table, facedown. Then raises his head and looks slowly at all the people in the room, from face to face. Then says slowly:] Yes. The fingerprints on that gun are those of someone in this room. [Silence. He turns to DIXON] Dixon.

DIXON: Yes, Chief?

HASTINGS: Have the boys examine the shrubbery and the ground under Mr. Fleming's window. Have them examine the balcony and the stairs leading down from it. Look through the phonograph records and see if you find one of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G Minor. Search the house and bring me all the newspapers you find. Look particularly for a copy of today's Courier.

DIXON: Okay, Chief. [Exits Right]

SERGE: [Jumping up suddenly] Mr. Hastings! I know who did it! [They all look at him] I know! And I will tell you! You are wasting the time when it is so clear! I know who did it! It was Mr. Ingalls!

INGALLS: By us in America, Serge, when you say a thing like that — you're expected to prove it.

HASTINGS: Now, Mr. Sookin, why do you think that Mr. Ingalls did it?

SERGE: Mr. Ingalls hated Mr. Breckenridge, because Mr. Breckenridge was fine and noble, and Mr. Ingalls is cold and cruel and without principles.

HASTINGS: Is he?

SERGE: But is it not clear? Mr. Ingalls he seduced the wife of Mr. Breckenridge. Mr. Breckenridge discovered it this afternoon.

HASTINGS: Now there, Mr. Sookin, you have an interesting point. Very interesting. There's never been any trouble between Mr. Ingalls and Mr. Breckenridge — until this afternoon. This evening, Mr. Breckenridge is found murdered. Convenient. A bit too convenient, don't you think? If Mr. Ingalls murdered Mr. Breckenridge — wouldn't it be dangerous for him to do it tonight? On the other hand, if someone else murdered Mr. Breckenridge — wouldn't he choose precisely tonight, when suspicion could be thrown so easily on Mr. Ingalls?

SERGE: But that is not all! Mr. Breckenridge he wanted to give this great invention to all the poor humanity. But Mr. Ingalls wanted to make the money for himself. Is it not to his advantage to kill Mr. Breckenridge?

HASTINGS: Sure. Except that Steve never cared for money.

SERGE: No? When he said so himself? When he shouted so? When I heard him?

HASTINGS: Sure. I heard him, too. Many times. Except that Steve never shouts.

SERGE: But then, if you heard it, too —

HASTINGS: Come on, Mr. Sookin, you can't be as stupid as you're trying to appear. Who doesn't care for money? You name one. But here's the difference: the man who admits that he cares for money is all right. He's usually worth the money he makes. He won't kill for it. He doesn't have to. But watch out for the man who yells too loudly how much he scorns money. Watch out particularly for the one who yells that others must scorn it. He's after something much worse than money.

INGALLS: Thanks, Greg.

HASTINGS: Don't thank me too soon. [Picks up the fingerprint cards] You see, the fingerprints on that gun are yours. [The others gasp]

ADRIENNE: [Jumping up] That's horrible! It's horrible! It's unfair! Of course they're Steve's. Steve handled that gun today! Everybody saw him do it!

HASTINGS: Oh?... Tell me about that, Miss Knowland.

ADRIENNE: It was... it was this afternoon. We were talking about Walter being afraid of guns. Walter said he wasn't, said he had a gun and he told Steve to look in that drawer. Steve took the gun out, and looked at it, and then put it back. And we all saw it. And someone... someone got the horrible idea...

HASTINGS: Yes, Miss Knowland, I think so, too. [Walks to cabinet, opens the drawer, looks in, then closes it] Yes, it's gone... Sit down, Miss Knowland. There's no need to be upset about this. Nobody who's ever seen a movie would commit murder holding a gun with his bare hand. Now, if Steve did it, he would certainly think of wiping off the fingerprints that he'd left on that gun earlier. But if somebody else did it, he'd certainly be damn glad to leave Steve's fingerprints where they were. Convenient, isn't it?... Now, who saw Steve handling that gun today? All of you here?

ADRIENNE: All — except Billy and Flash and Curtiss.

HASTINGS: [Nods] Interesting... You see, Steve, that was one of the reasons why I said I thought certain things let you out. I saw that there were prints on that gun and I didn't think you'd be stupid enough to leave them there. I didn't think you'd drop the gun like that, either. Not with a deep lake close by... The other reason was that I don't think you'd shoot a man in the back.

TONY: [Gasps at a sudden thought] Mr. Hastings!... I just thought of something!

HASTINGS: Yes?

TONY: What if Serge is a Communist spy? [SERGE gasps and leaps to his feet]

HASTINGS: [Shakes his head at TONY reproachfully] Why, Tony. You didn't really think that I hadn't thought of that already?

SERGE: [To TONY] You swine! I — a Communist? I who go to church? I who have suffered —

HASTINGS: Look, Mr. Sookin, be sensible about it. If you're not a Communist spy — you'd be angry. But if you are a Communist spy — you'd be much angrier, so where does it get you?

SERGE: But it is the insult! I, who have faith in the Holy Mother Russia —

HASTINGS: All right. Drop it. [To TONY] You see, Mr. Goddard, it's possible, but it doesn't jell. If Mr. Sookin were a Soviet agent, he'd be after the invention, of course. But nobody touched that machine. Besides, I understand that Mr. Sookin heartily supported Mr. Breckenridge in his decision to give this invention away to the world.

SERGE: I did! I am a humanitarian.

HASTINGS: What? Another one?

INGALLS: He did more than that. It was he who gave Walter the idea of the gift in the first place.

SERGE: That is true! But how did you know it?

INGALLS: I guessed it.

HASTINGS: Tell me, what is that invention actually good for? I mean, in practical application.

INGALLS: Oh, for a source of cheap power. For lighting the slums, for instance, or running factory motors.

HASTINGS: Is that all?

INGALLS: That's all.

HASTINGS: Well, you see? If it's a purely commercial invention, why should the Soviets be anxious to get exclusive control of it? They would try to steal it, of course. But once Mr. Breckenridge had decided to save them the trouble and give it away, they would cheer him as their best friend. They spend billions trying to prompt giveaways of that kind. They would guard his life — at least until tomorrow noon. They wouldn't send any spies around to kill him.

SERGE: But Mr. Hastings!

HASTINGS: Yes?

SERGE: I am not a Soviet spy!

HASTINGS: Okay. I haven't said you were. [To the others] Well, here's how we stand. On one side, we have Steve, who had not one, but two possible motives. He has no alibi at all and his fingerprints are on the gun. On the other side, we have Mr. Sookin, who has a perfect alibi and no possible motive.

SERGE: But then why do you not act? What more do you want? When you have the so good case against Mr. Ingalls?

HASTINGS: That's why, Serge — because it is so good. It's too good.

SERGE: Why do you not let the jury decide that?

HASTINGS: Because I am afraid that the average jury would agree with you.

[DIXON enters from the garden. He carries on his palm a tiny object wrapped in cellophane. He hands it to HASTINGS]

DIXON: Found in the grass near the machine.

HASTINGS: {Unwraps the cellophane. Looks, sighs with disgust] Oh Lord!... A cigarette butt... I didn't think murderers went around doing that anymore. [Waves to DIXON, who exits into the garden. HASTINGS picks up the cigarette butt, examines it] A Camel... burned just to the brand... How convenient... [Puts the butt down. Says wearily:] All right, who smokes Camels around here? [INGALLS takes out his cigarette case, opens it, and extends it to HASTINGS. HASTINGS looks and nods]

INGALLS: It doesn't surprise you?

HASTINGS: No. [To the others] Does anyone else here smoke Camels? [They shake their heads]

ADRIENNE: I do.

INGALLS: You don't smoke, Adrienne.

ADRIENNE: I do — on the stage... I'm very good at staging things.

HASTINGS: I'm not too sure of that. INGALLS: [In a warning tone] Adrienne...

ADRIENNE: [To HASTINGS] Keep him out of this. Are you running this investigation or is he? You've been reviewing things a lot around here. How about my doing that for a change?

HASTINGS: Go right ahead.

ADRIENNE: Well, for instance, look at me. I had two motives. I wanted to break my contract. If you wish to know how badly I wanted it — well, I tried to kill myself a year ago. If I'd try that, wouldn't I try something else, as desperate — or worse? Today I asked Walter, for the last time, to release me. He refused. That alone would be enough, wouldn't it? But that's not all. I love Steve Ingalls. I've been in love with him for years. Oh, it's all right for me to say that — because he doesn't give a damn about me. Today — I learned that he loves Helen. [Looks at HASTINGS] Well? Am I going to finish? Or will you?

INGALLS: [To ADRIENNE] You're going to shut up.

HASTINGS: No, Steve, I'd rather let Miss Knowland finish.

ADRIENNE: All right. Wouldn't I be smart enough to kill Walter and frame Steve for it? Wouldn't I figure that even if he's not convicted, Helen will never be able to get him — because if he married her, it would be like signing a confession? How's that? Pretty good case?

HASTINGS: Very good.

INGALLS: [Stepping forward] Adrienne...

ADRIENNE: [Snaps angrily] It's your turn to shut up! [To HASTINGS] And besides, that business about the murderer interrupting the fireworks — that's nothing but your own guess. What is there to prove it? Drop that — and my alibi is as bad as Steve's. Worse. Because I went out looking for Walter. Nothing wrong with this case, is there?

HASTINGS: Yes. There is. That's why it's good.

INGALLS: Greg, I won't allow this.

HASTINGS: Come on, Steve, that's the first foolish thing I've heard you say. What's the matter with you? How can you stop me? [To ADRIENNE] Miss Knowland, have you noticed that you're the only one here who's been contradicting herself?

ADRIENNE: How?

HASTINGS: That's why I like your case. Because it's not perfect. I don't like perfect cases... How? Well, if Steve was framed, I see only two people who had a motive for framing him. Mr. Sookin and you. Mr. Sookin hates Steve. You love him — which is much more damning. Now look at Mr. Sookin. If he framed Steve, he's been acting like a fool here, laying it on too thick. Now what would he do if he weren't a fool?

SERGE: [With a new kind of dangerous, mocking note in his voice] He'd pretend to be one.

HASTINGS: [Looks at him with new interest, says slowly:]

Quite so. [Then lightly again:] Congratulations, Mr. Sookin. You're beginning to understand my ways of thinking. You may be right. But there's another possible method of being clever. The person who framed Steve might do his best to act afterward as if he were protecting him.

INGALLS: Greg!

HASTINGS: [His voice driving on intensely] Keep still, all of you! Do you see, Miss Knowland? You've put on a beautiful show of protecting Steve. And yet, it was you who gave away the story of that interrupted love scene. Why? To show us that you were jealous? Or to damn Steve?

INGALLS: [In a tone of such authority that HASTINGS has to remain silent] All right, Greg. That's enough. [His tone makes everyone look at him] You wanted to know how I could stop you? Very simply. [Takes a notebook out of his pocket and throws it down on the table. Takes out a pencil and stands holding it in his hand, over the paper] Unless you leave Adrienne out of this, I'm going to write a confession that I did it.

[ADRIENNE stands stock-still, like a person hit over the head]

HASTINGS: But, Steve, you didn't do it!

INGALLS: That's your concern. Mine is only that she didn't do it. I'm not going to put on a show of protecting her — as she's been trying to protect me, very crudely. I'm not going to hint and throw suspicion on myself That's been done for me — quite adequately. I'm simply going to blackmail you. You understand? If I sign a confession — with the evidence you have on me, you'll be forced to put me on trial. You'll have no choice. You might know that I didn't do it, but the jury won't be so subtle. The jury will be glad to pounce upon the obvious. Have I made myself clear? Leave Adrienne out of this, unless you want an unsolved murder on your record — and on your conscience.

ADRIENNE: [It is a scream of terror, of triumph, of release all at once— and the happiest sound in the world] Steve! [He turns to look at her. They stand holding the glance. It is more revealing than any love scene. They look at each other as if they were alone in the room and in the world... Then she whispers, choking:] Steve... you, who've never believed in self-sacrifice... you, who've preached selfishness and egoism and... you wouldn't do this, unless... unless it's —

INGALLS: [In a low, tense voice, more passionate than the tone of a love confession] — unless it's for the most selfish reason in the world. [She closes her eyes. He turns away from her slowly. HELEN, who has been watching them, lets her head drop, hopelessly]

HASTINGS: [Breaking the silence] God help us when people begin protecting each other! When they start that — I'm through. [Throws the notebook to INGALLS] All right, Steve. Put it away. You win — for the moment. I'll have a few questions to ask you about this — but not right now. [To ADRIENNE] Miss Knowland, if you were actually protecting him, you have no respect for my intelligence at all. You should have known I wouldn't believe that Steve is guilty. I know a frame-up when I see one. [To the others] And for the information of the scoundrel who did this, I'd like to say that he's an incredible fool. Did he really expect me to believe that Steve Ingalls — with his brilliant, methodical, scientific mind — would commit a sloppy crime like this? I could readily accept Steve as capable of murder. But if he ever committed one, it would be the finest job in the world. There wouldn't be a hair's weight of a clue. He'd have an alibi — as perfect as a precision instrument. But to think of Steve leaving fingerprints and cigarette butts behind!... I'd like to get the bastard who planned this and punch him in the nose. It's not a case, it's a personal insult to me!

TONY: And to Steve.

HASTINGS: [Rising] I've had enough of this for tonight. Let's get some sleep and some sense. I shall ask everybody not to leave this house, of course. I'll have my men remain here — in this room and in the garden. I'll be back early in the morning. I won't ask you who killed Walter Breckenridge. I'll know that when I find the answer to another question: who framed Steve Ingalls?... Good night. [Exits into the garden, calling:] Dixon! [As the others move to rise slowly or look at one another, INGALLS turns and walks to the stairs. ADRIENNE — who has looked at no one but him — makes a step to follow him. He stops on the stairs, turns to her, says calmly:]

INGALLS: I told you to wait. Sound vibrations travel very slowly, Adrienne. Not yet. [Turns and exits up the stairs, as she stands looking after him]

CURTAIN

Early next morning. The room seems to be glowing. There is a clear blue sky outside and the house is flooded with sunlight.

HELEN and FLEMING are sitting at a table, deep in conversation. It is a serious conversation, but their voices are simple, light, natural.

FLEMING: Would we go by boat or by train?

HELEN: A plane would be best, don't you think? Easier for Billy and he'll enjoy it.

FLEMING: Do we have to make arrangements with Dr. Harlan in advance?

HELEN: I think so. I'll telephone him today.

FLEMING: Long-distance?

HELEN: Yes, of course. Why not?

FLEMING: Helen... is it going to be very expensive — the operation and all?

HELEN: We don't have to worry about that.

FLEMING: Yes, Helen. We do.

HELEN: [Looks at him. Then:] Of course. Forgive me. Bad habits are very hard to lose.

FLEMING: I thought -

[ARIENNE comes down the stairs. She walks as if her feet do not need to touch the ground. She wears a gay, simple summer dress. She looks like a person whose presence in a room would compete with the sunlight. But her manner is very simple; it is the manner of so profound a happiness that it cannot be anything but simple]

ADRIENNE: Good morning.

FLEMING: [Brightly] Good morning, Adrienne.

HELEN: [With a little effort] Good morning.

ADRIENNE: Mr. Hastings arrived?

FLEMING: Not yet.

ADRIENNE: [Looking through cigarette boxes] Any Camels around here? I think I'll take up smoking. Camels are wonderful things. God bless every Camel butt in the world! [Finds a cigarette and lights it]

FLEMING: Never saw you look like that, Adrienne. Slept well?

ADRIENNE: [Walking to French doors] Haven't slept at all. I don't see why people insist on sleeping. You feel so much better if you don't. And how can anybody want to lose a minute — a single minute of being alive?

FLEMING: What's the matter, Adrienne?

ADRIENNE: Nothing. [Points to the garden] It's the Fourth of July. [Exits into the garden]

HELEN: [Looks after her, then forces herself to return to the conversation] When we go to Montreal —

FLEMING: Look, Helen, here's what I thought: I'll have to take the money from you for Billy's operation. That's one time when it's proper for a man to accept help. But don't give me the money. Lend it. And charge me a fair interest on it. That, you see, would really be an act of humanity.

HELEN: Yes, Harvey. That's what we'll do.

FLEMING: [In a low voice] Thank you.

HELEN: And, of course, we'll take legal steps to make him "Billy Fleming" again... But you won't forbid me to visit him, will you?

FLEMING: [Smiles happily, shaking his head. Then, at a sudden grim thought:] Helen. There's one more thing. It's still possible that they'll decide that one of us... that...

HELEN: Yes. That one of us is the murderer.

FLEMING: Well... shall we agree that... if it's one of us... the other will take Billy to Montreal?

HELEN: Yes, Harvey. And if it's not one of us, then we'll go together.

[INGALLS enters, coming down the stairs]

INGALLS: Good morning.

HELEN: Good morning, Steve.

FLEMING: [Looks at the two of them, then:] Is Billy up yet?

INGALLS: Don't know. I haven't been downstairs.

FLEMING: Guess I'll go to see if he's up. [Exits Right]

INGALLS: [Turning to HELEN] Helen.

HELEN: [Quietly] I know.

INGALLS: Helen, will you marry me?

HELEN: [Looks at him, startled, then shakes her head slowly] No, Steve.

INGALLS: Do you think that I am afraid?

HELEN: No. But if I told you what I think of this, you'd be very angry. You're never angry, except when people say nice things about you. [As he is about to speak] No, Steve. You don't love me. Perhaps you thought you did. Perhaps you didn't know who it was that you really loved. I think you know it now. I do. You can't hurt me, Steve, except if you refuse to admit this. Because, then, I'll know that you have no respect for me at all.

INGALLS: [In a low voice] I'm sorry, Helen.

HELEN: [Nods her head slowly. Then forces herself to say lightly:] Besides, you should have noticed that I never said I loved you.

INGALLS: I noticed something else.

HELEN: Oh, that? Well, you must be generous, Steve. You mustn't hold a moment's weakness against me. After all, you're very attractive, and... and Adrienne was right about your manner of making love.

INGALLS: Helen, I'm making it harder for you.

HELEN: [Calmly, her head high, looking straight at him] No, Steve, no. I wanted to say it. And now I want you to forget it. No, I don't love you. I've never loved you. I've known you all these years — I've seen you so often — I've looked at you — I've heard your voice... But I never loved you.

INGALLS: Helen...

HELEN: And that, Steve, is all you have a right to remember.

[She turns, walks to stairs. The doorbell rings. She stops on the stairs. INGALLS opens the door. HASTINGS enters]

HASTINGS: Good morning.

HELEN: Good morning, Mr. Hastings.

INGALLS: Hello, Greg.

HASTINGS: [To INGALLS] It would be your face that I'd have to see first. All right, I suppose I'd better take you first. [To HELEN] Will you excuse me, Mrs. Breckenridge? This case has upset all my theories. I'll have to revert to the conventional and question some of the people in private.

HELEN: Yes, of course. I shall be upstairs if you want me. [Exits up the stairs]

HASTINGS: [Sitting down] Goddamn this case. Couldn't eat a bite of breakfast this morning.

INGALLS: Oh, I did. I had scrambled eggs and bacon and fresh strawberries and coffee and —

HASTINGS: All right, all right. It doesn't prove anything. You'd eat as well whether you'd done it or not. Did you do it?

INGALLS: What do you think?

HASTINGS: You know what I think. But damn it, Steve, if I don't solve this, it's you that they'll throw to the lions. The jury lions.

INGALLS: I don't think I'm a good type for a martyr.

HASTINGS: No. But a swell type for a murderer.

INGALLS: Oh yes.

[DIXON enters Right, carrying a stack of newspapers and a phonograph record]

DIXON: Good morning, Chief. Here it is. [Deposits his load on a table]

HASTINGS: What about the shrubbery outside and the balcony?

DIXON: In perfect order. No broken branches. No footprints. Nothing. [Picking up the record] Rachmaninoff's Prelude in G Minor all right. And the newspapers.

HASTINGS: [Looks through the newspapers, stops at one] Who reads the Red Worker?

DIXON: Mrs. Pudget.

HASTINGS: [Having gone to the bottom of the pile] No Courier?

DIXON: No Courier.

HASTINGS: Damn it, Dixon, we've got to find it — or prove that it wasn't here at all!

INGALLS: But it was here. I saw it.

HASTINGS: That's the hell of it! Too many of you saw it I don't think that little Holy Russian rat would've had the guts to fake it with an earlier edition. And yet I know there's something phony about that alibi. Dixon, look through the garbage cans, the incinerators, everything!

DIXON: We did.

HASTINGS: Look again.

DIXON: Okay, Chief. [Exits Right]

HASTINGS: Steve, don't be too damn noble and tell me who'd really have a reason to frame you around here!

INGALLS: If you'll take my word for it — and I wish you would — no one.

HASTINGS: No one?

INGALLS: I wouldn't vouch for Serge. But I know of no reason why he'd kill Walter.

HASTINGS: You know, I'm sure he's done it. Look at how it was done. So crude, so obvious. I don't see anyone else staging a frame-up quite so blatantly and hoping to get away with it. It just smells "Serge" all over. A dull, presumptuous, Communist mind that counts on its insolence to overcome the intelligence of anyone else.

INGALLS: But you've got to prove it.

HASTINGS: Yes. And I can't. Well, let's see about the others. Tony Goddard? No reason for him to frame you. Fleming? Possible. Out of fear. Drunkards are not very strong people.

INGALLS: I'll vouch for Fleming.

HASTINGS: Mrs. Breckenridge? No reason. Miss Knowland?... Now don't pull out any notebooks- Steve, don't refuse to answer this. I've got to ask it. You're in love with Adrienne Knowland, aren't you?

INGALLS: Desperately. Miserably. Completely. For many years.

HASTINGS: Why "miserably" for many years — when she loves you?

INGALLS: Because neither of us thought it possible of the other... Why did you have to ask this?

HASTINGS: Because — what, then, was that love scene with Mrs. Breckenridge?

INGALLS: [Shrugging] A moment's weakness. Despair, perhaps. Because I didn't think that I could ever have the woman I wanted.

HASTINGS: You chose a nice day to be weak on.

INGALLS: Yes, didn't I?

HASTINGS: [Rising] Well, I think I'll have a little talk with Fleming now.

INGALLS: Will you be long?

HASTINGS: I don't think so. [SERGE enters Right HASTINGS turns at the stairs] Ah, good morning, Commissar.

SERGE: [Stiffly] That is not funny.

HASTINGS: No. But it could be. [Exits up the stairs]

SERGE: [Sees the papers, hurries to look through them] Ah, the newspapers. Have they the Courier found?

INGALLS: No.

SERGE: But that is unbelievable! I cannot understand it!

INGALLS: Don't worry. They'll find it — when the time comes... You have nothing to worry about. Look at me.

SERGE: [Interested] You are worried?

INGALLS: Well, wouldn't you be? It's all right for Greg to amuse himself with fancy deductions and to believe the most improbable. A jury won't do that. A jury will love a case like mine. It's easy on their conscience.

SERGE: [As persuasively as he can make it] That is true. I think the jury it would convict you. I think you have no chance.

INGALLS: Oh, I might have a chance. But it will take money.

SERGE: [Attentively] Money?

INGALLS: Lots of money. I'll need a good lawyer.

SERGE: Yes. You will need a very good lawyer. And that is expensive.

INGALLS: Very expensive.

SERGE: Your case it is bad.

INGALLS: Very bad.

SERGE: You feel certain that you will be put on trial?

INGALLS: Looks like it.

SERGE: And... you do not have the money?

INGALLS: Oh, I suppose I can scrape some together, but you see, I've never made very much. Not like Walter. And what I made I put back into the laboratory. Oh, I guess I could raise some cash on that, but what's the use? Even if I'm acquitted, I'll be broke when I get out of it.

SERGE: You are not the type of man who will like it — being broke.

INGALLS: I won't like it at all.

SERGE: And besides, you believe that your own interest — it comes first?

INGALLS: That's what I believe.

SERGE: [Throws a quick glance around, then leans over the table, close to INGALLS, and speaks rapidly, in a low, hard, tense voice— a new SERGE entirely. Even his English is better, but his accent remains] Listen. No jokes and no clowning about what you knew or what you guessed. We haven't the time. And it's your neck to be saved. Five hundred thousand dollars — now — in your hands — for that invention.

INGALLS: [Whistles] Why, Serge, at the rate of fifteen dollars a week, it will take you —

SERGE: Cut it out. You know. You knew all the time. I knew that you knew. And it didn't do you any good, did it? There's no time for showing how smart you are. Now it's either you want it or you don't. And it must be quick.

INGALLS: Well, looks like you've got me, doesn't it?

SERGE: Yes. So don't start talking about your conscience or your patriotism or things like that. You and I, we understand each other.

INGALLS: I think we've understood each other from the first. [Chuckles] A gift to mankind, eh, Serge? Just to light the slums and put the greedy utility companies out of business?

SERGE: We have not time for laughing. Yes or no?

INGALLS: Do you carry five hundred thousand bucks, like that, in your pocket?

SERGE: I will write you a check.

INGALLS: How will I know it's any good?

SERGE: You'll know it when you see on whose account it's drawn. Beyond that, you'll have to take the chance. Because I want that graph right now.

INGALLS: Now?

SERGE: I can't come for it when you're in jail, can I? [Pulls a sheet of paper and a pencil out of a drawer and throws them down on the table] Now. On this sheet of paper. Before you touch the check.

INGALLS: Aren't you afraid of giving me a check? It could be used as evidence against you.

SERGE: You had evidence against me yesterday. You didn't use it. You saved me. Why?

INGALLS: I think you know that.

SERGE: Yes. There was one thing which you said yesterday — and when you said it, I knew I could have you.

INGALLS: I know what that was. But Greg Hastings didn't notice it.

SERGE: There were many things he didn't notice. Of course, you and I we know who killed Breckenridge.

INGALLS: I'm sure one of us does.

SERGE: It was Adrienne Knowland.

INGALLS: Was it?

SERGE: Good God, it's obvious, isn't it? But we don't care who did it, you and I. It was very convenient, that's all.

INGALLS: Yes.

SERGE: Well, do I get the graph?

INGALLS: I have no choice, have I? I suppose I'll get used to it in time, but it's rather uncomfortable — becoming a scoundrel.

SERGE: That won't bother you for long.

INGALLS: No, not for long...Write that check.

[SERGE takes a checkbook and a pen out of his pocket, sits down at the table, across from INGALLS, writes the check, then extends it, showing it to INGALLS, but not letting him. touch it. INGALLS looks at the check, reads:]

"The Soviet Culture and Friendship Society." Fancy that! What a coincidence.

SERGE: [Contemptuously] If I were doing what you are doing, at least I would not laugh about it.

INGALLS: That's the trouble with you, Serge. You have no sense of humor.

SERGE: You are a very contemptible person.

INGALLS: But I thought you knew that. [Extends his hand for the check]

SERGE: [Pulls the check back, puts it down on the table in front of himself, and pushes the sheet of paper toward INGALLS] Now get to work. Quick.

INGALLS: Why quite so much hurry? Can't you let me degrade myself gracefully?

SERGE: Shut up! The graph now!

INGALLS: [Picking up the pencil] Oh yes, the graph. [Taps his chin with the pencil thoughtfully] Have you ever thought, Serge, what a strange thing life is? There's so much about it that we don't understand.

SERGE: Hurry up, you fool!

INGALLS: Oh yes. [Leans over the paper, the pencil ready, then looks up] And when we don't understand things, we make mistakes.

SERGE: Shut up! Write!

INGALLS: What? Oh, the graph. Well you see cosmic rays are tiny particles which bombard the earth from outer space, carrying an electric charge of — [Looks up] For instance, we never understood that incident when someone shot at Walter a month ago. Or did we? [SERGE looks at him. INGALLS holds the glance. Then:] Shall I write?

SERGE: What about that incident?

INGALLS: Doesn't anything strike you as funny, Serge?

SERGE: What about that incident?

INGALLS: Oh, I thought you knew that I knew everything. Well, I know, for instance, that what you planned then — has succeeded now. Brilliantly, completely, and as you wanted it. Only much better planned than the first time. And a little late. One month too late. [SERGE jumps up] I'm sorry. You want the graph. Cosmic rays, when drawn into a single stream by means of... Incidentally, you're not a good shot, Serge. You're much better at housebreaking — or at breaking locks on bags, to be exact. You should have searched that bag, though. It would have looked less obvious.

SERGE: You understood —

INGALLS: Of course, Serge. If that murder had succeeded, the gun would have been found in my bag. And you wouldn't have had time to break the lock after the shot. You were very foresighted. But obvious.

SERGE: You can't prove that.

INGALLS: No. I can't prove it. And the gun in my bag wouldn't have proved much, either. Not much. Just enough to put me on trial. And you would have had one man who knew that graph dead, and the other in desperate need of money. But you're a bad shot. You're a much better psychologist. The gift to mankind idea worked smoother and safer.

SERGE: You can't prove —

INGALLS: No. I can't prove anything. And you know, Serge, I don't really think that you did it, this time. But doesn't it strike you as funny that someone has done it for you?

SERGE: I don't care what you think or know. It worked.

INGALLS: Yes. It worked.

SERGE: Then write, Goddamn you!

INGALLS: If you wish.

[There is the sound of a door opening upstairs. SERGE whirls around. INGALLS slams his right hand, palm down, over the check on the table, as HASTINGS comes down the stairs]

HASTINGS: [Notices INGALLS' hand at once, says lightly:] I'm not interrupting anything, am I?

[SERGE stands by the table, doing a very bad job of disguising his anxiety. INGALLS is perfectly calm]

INGALLS: No. No.

HASTINGS: Imagine finding the two of you in a friendly tete-a-tete.

INGALLS: Oh, we were discussing going into vaudeville together. In a mind-reading act. We're very good at reading each other's mind. Though I think I'm better at it than Serge.

HASTINGS: [Looks at INGALLS' right hand on the table, imitating his tone] You have an interesting hand, Steve. Ever had your palm read?

INGALLS: No. I don't believe in palmistry.

HASTINGS: [Takes out a cigarette] Give me a light, Steve. [INGALLS reaches into his pocket, takes out his lighter, snaps it on, and offers it to HASTINGS — all with his left hand] Didn't know you were left-handed.

INGALLS: I'm not. I'm just versatile.

HASTINGS: Come on, Steve, how long are you going to play the fool? Lift that hand.

INGALLS: Well, Serge enjoyed it. [Lifts his hand as SERGE leaps toward it, but HASTINGS pushes SERGE aside and seizes the check]

HASTINGS: [Reading the check] "Pay to the order of Steven Ingalls..." Well, well, well.

Had I come down a minute later, you'd have been half-a-millionaire, Steve.

INGALLS: Yes. Why did you have to hurry?

SERGE: [Screams at the top of his voice, whirling upon INGALLS] You swine! You did it on purpose!

HASTINGS: [In mock astonishment] No?

SERGE: [To INGALLS] You lied! You betrayed me! You never intended to sell yourself! You're unprincipled and dishonest!

INGALLS: You shouldn't have trusted me like that.

[HELEN and TONY enter hurriedly at the top of the stairs]

HELEN: [Anxiously] What's going on here?

HASTINGS: Nothing much. Just Serge throwing five-hundred-thousand-dollar checks around.

[HELEN gasps. TONY follows her down the stairs]

SERGE: [Screaming defiantly to INGALLS and HASTINGS] Well? What are you going to do about it? You can't prove anything!

[FLEMING hurries in Right and stops short at the door]

HASTINGS: [Reproachfully] Now, Serge. We can prove that you're defrauding the Refugees' Committee out of fifteen bucks a week, for instance. And we can prove that I'm right about people who have no motive.

TONY: [Almost regretfully] Gee, I hoped it wouldn't be Serge. I hate having to be grateful to Serge for the rest of my life.

[ADRIENNE comes in from the garden, followed a little later by DIXON]

SERGE: What motive? What can you prove? That I tried to buy an invention from a murderer who needed the money — nothing else. It's just a simple commercial invention. Isn't it, Mr. Ingalls?

INGALLS: Yes.

HASTINGS: Goddamn it, we've got to find that newspaper!

SERGE: Now you understand, Mr. Hastings? Prove that I wasn't in Stamford! Prove it! I don't care whether you find that paper or not! Your own dear friends will have to swear they saw it!

HASTINGS: They don't know what edition it was.

SERGE: That's right! They don't know! Then how do they know it wasn't the last one? Prove that!

FLEMING: [Looking around the room, uselessly, frantically] We ought to tear this house down and find the lousy sheet! [TONY joins him in searching]

SERGE: Prove that I lied to you! Find a jury, even a dumb American jury, that will want to look at me, when they hear of this very heroic genius — [Points at INGALLS] — alone in the garden, leaving his fingerprints on the gun!

[During the last few speeches, INGALLS takes out his cigarette case, takes acigarette, takes a match folder from the table, strikes a match, lights the cigarette and tosses the lighted match into the fireplace. ADRIENNE, who has been looking at him, follows it with her eyes, screams suddenly, and dives for the fireplace to put out the fire set to the charred, rolled remnant of a newspaper]

ADRIENNE: Steve! Look! [Rises from her knees, with the rolled newspaper in her hand. HASTINGS seizes it from her. He unrolls it frantically, looks for the upper front page. Stands perfectly still and silent for a moment. Then raises his head to look at the others, and says quietly, almost wearily:]

HASTINGS: The early edition of yesterday's Courier.

[Silence. Then SERGE lunges for the paper]

SERGE: You're lying!

HASTINGS: [Pushing him aside] Oh no, you don't!

[DIXON steps to SERGE's side. HASTINGS extends the newspaper headline toward SERGE, but at a safe distance]

See for yourself But don't touch it.

SERGE: It's not the paper! It's not the same paper! It was the last edition! I know it was! I looked for the mark when I got it! It was the last edition that I specially wanted!

HASTINGS: [Shaking his head] And that, Serge, proves I'm right about people who have good alibis.

SERGE: Who put it in that fireplace? Who burned it like this? I didn't do that! [Whirls on

INGALLS] He did it! Of course! I gave it to him! When I arrived I gave the paper to him! He changed it for this one! He put it there in the fireplace and —

HASTINGS: — and almost burned the evidence, just now, that's going to save his life? Come on, Serge, how much do you expect me to believe?

SERGE: But I didn't -

HASTINGS: You did. But very badly. Like all the rest of it. You were in a hurry when you started burning that paper. You were interrupted. So you stuck it there, hoping to get it later. But you couldn't — not with my man here all night... Well, I'm almost as big a fool as you are. Do you know why I took that alibi of yours seriously? Because I didn't think you'd have the guts to pull what you pulled. You could shoot a man in the back all right. But to risk showing a paper to all those people — when your life depended on whether they'd notice the edition or not — that took the kind of courage you haven't got. Or so I thought. I owe you an apology there.

SERGE: But you can't prove I did it! You can't prove this is the paper I brought!

HASTINGS: All right, produce the other one.

SERGE: You can't convict me on that!

HASTINGS: I can have a pretty good try at it.

SERGE: [Real terror showing in his face for the first time] You're going to —

HASTINGS: I'm going to let you explain it all to a jury.

SERGE: [Screaming] But you can't! You can't! Listen! I'm innocent! But if you put me on trial, they'll kill me, don't you understand? Not your jury! My own chiefs! All right! I am a Soviet agent! And they don't forgive an agent who gets put on trial! They'll kill me — my own chiefs at home! Don't you understand? Even if I'm acquitted, it will be a death sentence for me just the same! [Pulls a gun out] Stand still, all of you!

[SERGE whirls around and rushes out through the French doors. DIXON flies after him, pulling out his gun. They disappear in the garden, as HASTINGS starts to follow them. There are two shots. After a moment, HASTINGS comes back slowly]

HASTINGS: That's that.

HELEN: Is he dead?

HASTINGS: Yes. [Then adds:] Perhaps it's best this way. It saves us from a long and painful trial. The case is closed. I'm glad — for all of you. [To HELEN] I hope, Mrs. Breckenridge, that when you've been a neighbor of ours longer, you will forgive us for giving you on your first day here —

HELEN: I shall be a neighbor of yours, Mr. Hastings — perhaps — later. Not this summer. I'm going to sell this house. Harvey and I are going to Montreal.

TONY: And I'm going to Gimbel's.

[HASTINGS bows as HELEN exits up the stairs with TONY. FLEMING exits Right]

HASTINGS: [Walks to door Left, turns to INGALLS] It's as I've always said, Steve. There is no perfect crime.

INGALLS: [Who has not moved from near the fireplace] No, Greg. There isn't. [HASTINGS exits Left. INGALLS turns to look at Adrienne]

ADRIENNE: What are you going to do now, Steve?

INGALLS: I'm going to ask you to marry me. [As she makes a movement forward] But before you answer, there's something I'm going to tell you. Yesterday, when you looked at those fireworks and suddenly thought of something — it was not of me or of Helen, was it?

ADRIENNE: No.

INGALLS: I know what you thought. You see, I know who killed Walter Breckenridge. I want you to know it. Listen and don't say anything until I finish.

[The lights black out completely. Then a single spotlight hits the center of the stage. We can see nothing beyond, only the figures of the two men in the spotlight: WALTER BRECKENRIDGE and STEVE INGALLS. BRECKENRIDGE is operating the levers of a portable electric switchboard. INGALLS stands beside him. INGALLS speaks slowly, evenly, quietly, in the expressionless tone of an irrevocable decision]

INGALLS: If, tomorrow at noon, Walter, you give this invention to the world — then, the day after tomorrow, Soviet Russia, Communist China, and every other dictatorship, every other scum on the face of the earth, will have the secret of the greatest military weapon ever invented.

BRECKENRIDGE: Are you going to start on that again? I thought we had settled it this afternoon.

INGALLS: This afternoon, Walter, I begged you. I had never begged a man before. I am not doing that now.

BRECKENRIDGE: You're interfering with the fireworks. Drop it, Steve. I'm not interested.

INGALLS: No, you're not interested in the consequences. Humanitarians never are. All you see ahead is lighted slums and free electric power on the farms. But you don't want to know that the same invention and the same grand gesture of yours will also send death through the air, and blow up ammunition depots, and turn cities into rubble.

BRECKENRIDGE: I am not concerned with war. I am taking a much farther perspective, I am looking down the centuries. What if one or two generations have to suffer?

INGALLS: And so, at a desperate time, when your country needs the exclusive secret and control of a weapon such as this, you will give it away to anyone and everyone.

BRECKENRIDGE: My country will have an equal chance with the rest of the world.

INGALLS: An equal chance to be destroyed? Is that what you're after? But you will never understand. You have no concern for your country, for your friends, for your property, or for yourself. You don't have the courage to hold that which is yours, to hold it proudly, wisely, openly, and to use it for your own honest good. You don't even know that that takes courage.

BRECKENRIDGE: I do not wish to discuss it.

INGALLS: You are not concerned with mankind, Walter. If you were, you'd know that when you give things to mankind, you give them also to mankind's enemies.

BRECKENRIDGE: You have always lacked faith in your fellow men. Your narrow patriotism is old-fashioned, Steve. And if you think that my decision is so dangerous, why don't you report me to the government?

INGALLS: There are too many friends of Serge Sookin's in the government — at present. It's I who must stop you.

BRECKENRIDGE: You? There's nothing you can do about it. You're only a junior partner.

INGALLS: Yes, Walter, that's all I am. Sixteen years ago, when we formed our partnership and started the Breckenridge Laboratories, I was very young. I did not care for mankind and I did not care for fame. I was willing to give you most of the profits, and all the glory, and your name on my inventions — they were my inventions, Walter, mine alone, all of them, and nobody knew it outside the laboratory. I cared for nothing but my work. You knew how to handle people. I didn't. And I agreed to everything you wanted — just to have a chance at the work I loved. You told me that I was selfish, while you — you loved people and wanted to help them. Well, I've seen your kind of help. And I've seen also that it was I, I the selfish individualist, who helped mankind by producing the Vitamin X separator and the cheap violet ray and the electric saw — [Points to machine] — and this. While you accepted gratitude for it — and ruined all those you touched. I've seen what you've done to men. It was I who gave you the means to do it. It was I who made it possible for you. It is my responsibility now. I created you — I'm going to destroy you. [BRECKENRIDGE glances up at him swiftly, understands, jerks his hand away from the machine and to his coat pocket] What are you looking for? This? [Takes the gun out of his pocket and shows it to BRECKENRIDGE. Then slips it back into his pocket] Don't move, Walter.

BRECKENRIDGE: [His voice a little hoarse, but still assured] Have you lost your mind? Do you expect me to believe that you're going to kill me, here, now, with a house full of people a few steps away?

INGALLS: Yes, Walter.

BRECKENRIDGE: Are you prepared to hang for it?

INGALLS: No.

BRECKENRIDGE: How do you expect to get away with it? [INGALLS does not answer, but takes out a cigarette and lights it] Stop playing for effects! Answer me!

INGALLS: I am answering you. [Indicating the cigarette] Watch this cigarette, Walter. You have as long a time left to live as it will take this cigarette to burn. When it burns down to the brand, I'm going to throw it here in the grass. It will be found near your body. The gun will be found here — with my fingerprints on it. My handkerchief will be found here on a branch- Your watch will be smashed to set the time. I will have no alibi of any kind. It will be the sloppiest and most obvious murder ever committed- And that is why it will be the perfect crime.

BRECKENRIDGE: [Fear coming a little closer to him] You... you wouldn't...

INGALLS: But that's not all. I'm going to let your friend Serge Sookin hang for your murder. He's tried once to do just what I'm going to do for him. Let him take his punishment now. I'm going to frame myself. And I'm also going to frame him to look as if he'd framed me. I'll give him an alibi — and then I'll blow it up. Right now, he is in Stamford, buying a newspaper. But it won't do him any good, because, at this moment, up in my room, I have an early edition of today's Courier. Do you understand, Walter?

BRECKENRIDGE: [His voice hoarse, barely audible] You... Goddamn fiend...!

INGALLS: You wanted to know why I let you see me kissing Helen today. To give myself a plausible motive of sorts. Just the kind that would tempt a Serge to frame me. You see, I can't let Greg Hastings guess my real motive. I didn't know that Helen would play her part so well. I never dreamed that possible or I wouldn't have done it. It's the only thing that I regret.

BRECKENRIDGE: You... won't... get away with it…

INGALLS: The greatest chance I'm taking is that I must not let Greg Hastings guess the real nature of my invention. If he guesses that — he'll know I did it. But I have to take that chance. [Looks at his cigarette] Your time is up. [Puts the butt out and tosses it aside]

BRECKENRIDGE: [In utter panic] No! You won't! You won't! You can't! [Makes a movement to run]

INGALLS: [Whipping the gun out] I told you not to move. [BRECKENRIDGE stops] Don't run, Walter. Take it straight for once. If you run — you'll only help me. I'm a good shot — and nobody would believe that I'd shoot a man in the back. [And now this is the real STEVE INGALLS — hard, alive, taut with energy, his voice ringing — the inventor, the chance-taker, the genius — as he stands pointing the gun at BRECKENRIDGE] Walter! I won't let you do to the world what you've done to all your friends. We can protect ourselves against men who would do us evil. But God save us from the men who would do us good! This is the only humanitarian act I've ever committed — the only one any man can ever commit. I'm setting men free. Free to suffer. Free to struggle. Free to take chances. But free, Walter, free! Don't forget, tomorrow is Independence Day!

[BRECKENRIDGE whirls around and disappears in the dark. INGALLS does not move from the spot, only turns without hurry, lifts the gun, and fires into the darkness]

[The spotlight vanishes. Blackout]

[When the full lights come back, INGALLS is sitting calmly in a chair, finishing his story. ADRIENNE stands tensely, silently before him]

INGALLS: I've told you this because I wanted you to know that I don't regret it. Had circumstances forced me to take a valuable life — I wouldn't hesitate to offer my own life in return. But I don't think that of Walter. Nor of Serge... Now you know what I am. [Rises, stands looking at her] Now, Adrienne, repeat it — if you still want me to hear it.

ADRIENNE: [Looking at him, her head high] No, Steve. I can't repeat it now. I said that I was inexcusably, contemptibly in love with you and had been for years. I can't say that any longer. I will say that I'm in love with you — so terribly proudly in love with you — and will be for years... and years... and forever... [He does not move, only bows his head slowly, accepting his vindication]

CURTAIN

"Do you think," Ayn Rand said to me when I finished reading, "that I would ever give the central action in a story of mine to anyone but the hero?"

The Fountainhead (unpublished excerpts)

In 1938, after devoting about three years to architectural research, Ayn Rand started writing The Fountainhead. She finished in late 1942, and the novel was published the next year. In less than a decade, the book became world-famous; by now, it has sold more than six million copies. Ayn Rand's own view of The Fountainhead can be found in her introduction to the 25th Anniversary Edition.

For this anthology, I have selected two sets of excerpts cut by Miss Rand from the original manuscript; these are the only unpublished passages of substantial length- Both are from the early part of the novel, written in 1938. As is true of the passages from We the Living, neither has received Ayn Rand's customary final editing, and the titles are my own invention.

"Vesta Dunning" is the story of Howard Roark's first love affair, with a young actress, before he found Dominique. In the manuscript, the story is interwoven with other plot developments; it is offered here as a continuous, uninterrupted narrative.

Vesta Dunning is an eloquent example of a person of "mixed premises," to use a term of Ayn Rand's. In part, Vesta shares Howard Roark's view of life; in part, she is a secondhander, willing to prostitute her talent in order to win the approval of others, a policy she tries to defend as a means to a noble end. Miss Rand cut Vesta from the novel, she told me, when she realized that there was too great a similarity between Vesta and Gail Wynand, the newspaper publisher (who also pursued a secondhander's course in the name of achieving noble ends). In some respects, there is a marked similarity between Vesta and Peter Keating, too; in fact, as the material makes plain, some of Keating's dialogue was written originally for Vesta.

"Roark and Cameron" comprises two distinct scenes involving both men. The first takes place when Roark is working in New York City for Henry Cameron, the once-famous architect who is now forgotten by the world; the second occurs some time later, at the site of the Heller house, Roark's first commission after starting in private architectural practice on his own. Evidently, Miss Rand cut the scenes because she decided that so detailed a treatment of Roark's relationship to Cameron was inessential to the purpose of the novel at this point — that is, the establishing of Roark's character and the development of the plot.

Despite the intrinsic interest of this manuscript material, I have serious misgivings about publishing it. In certain respects, the scenes are inconsistent with the final novel (which may very well have contributed to their being cut). It is doubtful to me whether Roark, as presented in the novel, would have had an affair with Vesta. It is doubtful whether, in the Cameron scene, Roark would have lost his temper to the extent of punching a man. Furthermore, Roark's statements are not always as exact philosophically as Miss Rand's final editing would have made them. The Roark in the novel, for instance, would not have said that he is too selfish to love anyone (in the novel he says that selfishness is a precondition of love); nor would he have said, without a clearer context, that he hates the world. Aside from these specifics, the general tone of Roark's characterization does not always seem right; without the context of the rest of the novel, he comes across, I think, as overly severe at times to Vesta, and also as overly abstracted and antisocial. Undoubtedly, this is also partly an issue of exact nuance and wording, which Miss Rand would have adjusted had she decided to retain the material.

The admirers of The Fountainhead see the novel, and Roark, as finished realities. The author obviously shared this view. I must therefore stress that the following is not to be taken as part of The Fountainhead. These scenes do not contribute to the novel's theme or meaning, and they do not cast further light on Roark's character or motivation. They are offered as individual, self-contained pieces, to be read as such. If I may state the point paradoxically, for emphasis: these events did not happen to Roark — they are pure fiction!

Despite my misgivings, I could not convince myself to keep the material hidden, for a single reason: it is too well written. Miss Rand told me once that she regretted having to cut the Vesta Dunning affair because it contained "some of my best writing." This is true, and it is from this perspective that the passages are best approached. Even in this unedited material, one can see some characteristic features of Ayn Rand's mature literary style. More than any other single attribute of her writing, her style reveals the extent of her growth in the space of a decade.

The feature of Ayn Rand's style most apparent in these scenes is one that perfectly reflects her basic philosophy. I mean her ability to integrate concretes and abstractions.

Philosophically, Ayn Rand is Aristotelian. She does not believe in any Platonic world of abstractions; nor does she accept the view that concepts are merely arbitrary social conventions, with its implication that reality consists of unintelligible concretes. Following Aristotle, she holds that the world of physical entities is reality, and that it can be understood by man through the use of his conceptual faculty. Concepts, she holds, are not supernatural or conventional; they are objective forms of cognition based on, and ultimately making comprehensible, the facts of reality perceived by our senses. (Ayn Rand's distinctive theory of concepts is presented in her Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology.) For man, therefore, the proper method of knowledge is not perception alone or conception alone, but the integration of the two — which means, in effect, the union of concretes and abstractions. One literary expression of this epistemology is Ayn Rand's commitment to integrating theme and plot. The plot of an Ayn Rand novel is a purposeful progression of events, not a series of random occurrences. The events add up to a general thematic idea, which is thus implicit in and conveyed by the story, not arbitrarily superimposed on it. The plot, in short, is a progression of concretes integrated by and conveying an abstraction.

The same epistemology is essential to Ayn Rand's style of writing, whether she is describing physical nature, human action, or the most delicate, hidden emotion. The style consists in integrating the facts being described and their meaning.

Consider, for example, the following paragraph, which describes Vesta on the screen:

... She had not learned the proper camera angles, she had not learned the correct screen makeup; her mouth was too large, her cheeks too gaunt, her hair uncombed, her movements too jerky and angular. She was like nothing ever seen in a film before, she was a contradiction to all standards, she was awkward, crude, shocking, she was like a breath of fresh air. The studio had expected her to be hated; she was suddenly worshiped by the public. She was not pretty, nor gracious, nor gentle, nor sweet; she played the part of a young girl not as a tubercular flower, but as a steel knife. A reviewer said that she was a cross between a medieval pageboy and a gun moll. She achieved the incredible: she was the first woman who ever allowed herself to make strength attractive on the screen.

The paragraph begins with a description of Vesta's mouth, her hair, her movements, etc. This description re-creates the concrete reality, sets the physical essentials of a young Katharine Hepburn type before us, so that we can, in effect, perceive the event (Vesta onscreen) through our own eyes. On this basis, we are offered some preliminary abstractions, giving a first layer of meaning to these facts; Vesta comes across, we learn, not as pretty, gentle, sweet, but as crude, shocking, fresh — and we accept this account, we see its inner logic, because we know the supporting facts. Then we are given some vivid images comparing Vesta to utterly different entities of a similar meaning (a steel knife, a gun moll, etc.); this helps both to keep the reality real (i.e., to keep it concrete) and to develop the meaning further. The images seem to flow naturally out of the earlier material; they do not strike us as forced or as superfluous, "literary" embellishments. Finally, after this buildup, we are given a single abstraction which unites all of it — the facts, the preliminary abstractions, the images. We are given an integrating concept, which names a definitive meaning, to carry forward with us:"... she was the first woman who ever allowed herself to make strength attractive on the screen." By this time, we do not have to guess at the meaning of "strength," even though it is a very broad abstraction; we know what is meant by it in this context, because we have seen the data that give rise to the concept here. And we believe the term; we do not feel that it is empty or arbitrary, or that we have to take the author's word for it. We do not even feel that it is the conclusion of an extended argument (though in effect it is). We take it here virtually as a statement of the self-evident, as a statement of what we ourselves by now are ready to conclude.

This method is not, of course, repeated in every paragraph. It is applied only where the material requires it. Nor is the order of development always the same; nor are the specific steps — there may be more or fewer of them. But this kind of approach, in some form and on some level, is always present. It is one of the elements that make Ayn Rand's writing so powerful. Concretes by themselves are meaningless, and cannot even be retained for long; abstractions by themselves are vague or empty. But concretes illuminated by an abstraction acquire meaning, and thereby permanence in our minds; and abstractions illustrated by concretes acquire specificity, reality, the power to convince. The result is that both aspects of the writing become important to the reader, who experiences at once the vividness of sensory perception and the clarity of a rational thought process.

Essential to Ayn Rand's method is that the concretes really be concrete, i.e., perceptual. The entity or attribute must be described as the reader would actually see it if he were present. Yet, at the same time, the description must pave the way for the abstraction. The description, therefore, must be highly selective; it must dispense with all premature commentary and all irrelevant data, however naturalistic. It must present those facts, and those only, that are essential if the reader is to apprehend the scene from the angle the author requires. This demands of the writing an extreme ingenuity and purposefulness. The author must continuously invent the telling detail, the fresh perspective, the eloquent juxtaposition, that will create in the reader the awareness of a perceptual reality — which contains an implicit meaning, the specific meaning intended by the author.

As a small instance: at one point, Miss Rand wishes to convey Vesta's feeling of helplessness in Roark's bed, her desperate need to confess her love to him and yet at the same time to hide it because of his aloofness. Miss Rand does not describe this conflict in any such terms, which are mere generalities. She makes the conflict real by a perceptual description, at once strikingly original and yet nothing more than a selective account of an ordinary physical fact: "He listened silently to her breathless voice whispering to him, when she could not stop it: 'I love you, Howard... I love you... I love you...' her lips pressed to his arm, to his shoulder, as if her mouth were telling it to his skin, and it was not from her nor for him." One can see the mouth on the skin as a kind of movie close-up; and implicit in the sight, in this context, is the meaning, the attempt at concealment ("and it was not from her nor for him").

A further requirement of Ayn Rand's method is that she use language exactly.

Miss Rand must name the precise data which lead to the abstraction, and the precise abstraction to which they lead. On either level, a mere approximation, or any touch of vagueness, will not do; such defaults would weaken or destroy the inner logic of the writing, and thereby its power and integrity. Miss Rand, therefore, is sensitive to the slightest shade of wording or connotation that might possibly be overgeneralized, unclear, or misleading; she is sensitive to any wording that might blur what she is seeking to capture. She wishes both the facts and the meaning to confront the reader cleanly, starkly, unmistakably. (Thus her scorn for those writers who equate artistry with ambiguity.)

When Roark first meets Vesta, for instance, he likes her — that is the fact — but "liking" by itself is not enough here. What is his exact feeling? "He liked that face, coldly, impersonally, almost indifferently; but sharply and quite personally, he liked the thing in her voice which he had heard before he entered." Or, on the level of meaning: when Vesta feels Roark's aloofness in bed, "it was as if the nights they shared gave her no rights." The last two words are followed immediately by: "... not the right to the confidence of a friend, not the right to the consideration of an acquaintance, not even the right to the courtesy of a stranger passing her on the street." Now we know what it means for her to have "no rights."

The same use of language governs Ayn Rand's dialogue. An admirer of her work once observed that her characters do not talk naturalistically — that is, the way people talk. They state the essence of what people mean. And they state it exactly. (This is true even of villains in her novels, who seek not to communicate, but to evade.) When Vesta feels ambivalence for Roark, as an example, there is a kind of surgical conscientiousness involved as she struggles to name it, to name the exact shade of her feeling, in all its complexity and contradiction.

Howard, I love you. I don't know what it is. I don't know why it should be like this. I love you and I can't stand you. And also, I wouldn't love you if I could stand you, if you were any different. But what you are — that frightens me, Howard. I don't know why. It frightens me because it's something in me which I don't want. No. Because it's something in me which I do want, but I'd rather not want it...

Such painstaking, virtually scientific precision could by itself constitute an admirable literary style. But in Ayn Rand's work it is integrated with what may seem to some to be an opposite, even contradictory feature: extravagant drama, vivid imagery, passionate evaluations (by the characters and the author) — in short, a pervasive emotional quality animating the writing. The emotional quality is not a contradiction; it is an essential attribute of the style, a consequence of the element of abstractions. A writer who identifies the conceptual meaning of the facts he conveys is able to judge and communicate their value significance. The mind that stops to ask about something, "What is it?" goes on to ask, "So what?" and to let us know the answer. A style describing concretes without reference to their abstract meaning would tend to emerge as dry or repressed (for example, the style of Sinclair Lewis or John O'Hara). A style featuring abstractions without reference to concretes would, if it tried to be evaluative, emerge as bombastic or feverish (for example, the style of Thomas Wolfe). In contrast to both types, Ayn Rand offers us a rare combination: the most scrupulous, subtly analyzed factuality, giving rise to the most violent, freewheeling emotionality. The first makes the second believable and worthy of respect; the second makes the first exciting.

Serious Romantic writers in the nineteenth century (there are none left now) stressed values in their work, and often achieved color, drama, passion. But they did it, usually, by retreating to a realm of remote history or of fantasy — that is, by abandoning actual, contemporary reality. Serious Naturalists of one or two generations ago stressed facts, and often achieved an impressively accurate reproduction of contemporary reality — but, usually, at the price of abandoning broad abstractions, universal meanings, value judgments. (Today's writers generally abandon everything and achieve nothing.) By uniting the two essentials of human cognition, perception and conception, Ayn Rand's writing (like her philosophy) is able to unite facts and values.

Ayn Rand described her literary orientation as Romantic Realism (see The Romantic Manifesto). The term is applicable on every level of her writing. For her, "romanticism" does not mean escape from life; nor does "realism" mean escape from values. The universe she creates in her novels is not a realm of impossible fantasy, but the world as it might be (the principle of Realism) — and as it ought to be (the principle of Romanticism). Her characters are not knights in armor or Martians in spaceships, but architects, businessmen, scientists, politicians — men of our era dealing with real, contemporary problems (Realism) — and she presents these characters not as helpless victims of society, but as heroes (or villains) shaped by their own choices and values (Romanticism).

"Romantic Realism" applies equally to her style. The re-creation of concretes, the commitment to perceptual fact, the painstaking precision and clarity of the descriptions — this is Realism in a sense deeper than fidelity to the man on the street. It is fidelity to physical reality as such. The commitment to abstractions, to broader significance, to evaluation, drama, passion — this is the Romanticist element.

Ayn Rand's writing (like everyone else's) is made only of abstractions (words). Because of her method, however, she can make words convey at the same time the reality of a given event, its meaning, and its feeling. The reader experiences the material as a surge of power that reaches him on all levels: it reaches his senses and his mind, his mind and his emotions.

Although Ayn Rand's writing is thoroughly conscious, it is not self-conscious; it is natural, economical, flowing. It does not strike one as literary pyrotechnics (although it is that). Like all great literature, it strikes one as a simple statement of the inevitable.

The above indicates my reasons for wanting to publish these scenes. Taken by themselves as pieces of writing, "Vesta Dunning" and "Roark and Cameron" are a fitting conclusion to this survey of Ayn Rand's early work and development.

The following is what the author of "The Husband I Bought" was capable of twelve years later.

L. P.

The snow fell in a thick curtain, as if a pillow were being shaken from the top windows of the tenement, and through the flakes sticking to his eyelashes, Roark could barely see the entrance of his home. He shook the iced drops from the upturned collar of his coat, a threadbare coat that served meagerly through the February storms of New York. He found the entrance and stopped in the dark hall, where a single yellow light bulb made a mosaic of glistening snakes in the melting slush on the floor, and he shook his cap out, gathering a tiny pool of cold, biting water in the palm of his hand. He swung into the black hole of the stairway, for the climb to the sixth floor-It was long past the dinner hour, and only a faint odor of grease and onions remained in the stairshaft, floating from behind the closed, grimy doors on the landings. He had worked late. Three new commissions had come unexpectedly into the office, and Cameron had exhausted his stock of blasphemy, a bracing, joyous blasphemy ringing through the drafting room as a tonic. "Just like in the old days," Simpson had said, and in the early dusk of the office, in the unhealthy light, in the freezing drafts from the snow piled on the window ledges there had reigned for days an air of morning and spring. Roark was tired tonight, and he went up the stairs closing his eyes often, pressing his lids down to let them rest from the strain of microscopically thin black lines that had had to be drawn unerringly all day long, lines that stood now as a white cobweb on dark red whenever he closed his eyes. But he went up swiftly, his body alive in a bright, exhilarating exhaustion, a weariness demanding action, not rest, to relieve it.

He had reached the fourth floor, and he stopped. High on the dark wall facing the smeared window, the red glow of a soda-biscuit sign across the river lighted the landing, and black dots of snowflakes' shadows rolled, whirling, over the red patch. Two flights up, behind the closed door of his room, he heard a voice speaking.

He rose a few steps, and stood pressed to the wall, and listened. It was a woman's voice, young, clear, resonant, and it was raised in full force, as if addressing a huge crowd. He heard, incredibly, this:

... but do not question me. I do not answer questions.

You have a choice to make: accept me now

or go your own silent, starless way

to an unsung defeat in uncontested battle.

I stand before you here, I am unarmed;

I offer you tonight my only weapon—

the weapon of that certainty I carry,

unchangeable, untouched and unshared.

Tomorrow's battle I have won tonight

if you but follow me. We'll lift together

the siege of Orleans and win the freedom

I am alone to see and to believe...

The voice was exultant, breaking under an emotion it could not control. It seemed to fail suddenly in the wrong places, speaking the words not as they should have been spoken on a stage, but as a person would fling them out in delirium, unable to hold them, choking upon them. It was the voice of a somnambulist, unconscious of its own sounds, knowing only the violence and the ecstasy of the dream from which it came.

Then it stopped and there was no sound in the room above. Roark went up swiftly and threw the door open.

A girl stood in the middle of the room, with her back to him. She whirled about, when she heard the door knock against the wall. His eyes could not catch the speed of her movement. He had not seen her turn. But there she was suddenly, facing him, as if she had sprung up from the floor and frozen for a second. Her short brown hair stood up wildly with the wind of the motion. Her thin body stood as it had stopped, twisted in loose, incredible angles, awkward, except for her long, slim legs that could not be awkward, even when planted firmly, stubbornly wide apart, as they were now.

"What do you want here?" she snapped ferociously.

"Well," said Roark, "don't you think that I should ask you that?"

She looked at him, at the room.

"Oh," she said, something extinguishing itself in her voice, "I suppose it's your room. I'm sorry."

She made a brusque movement to go. But he stepped in front of the door.

"What were you doing here?" he asked.

"It's your own fault. You should lock your room when you go out. Then you won't have to be angry at people for coming in."

"I'm not angry. And there's nothing here to lock up."

"Well, I am angry! You heard me here, didn't you? Why didn't you knock?"

But she was looking at him closely, her eyes widening, clearing slowly with the perception of his face; he could almost see each line of his face being imprinted, reflected upon hers; and suddenly she smiled, a wide, swift, irresistible smile that seemed to click like a windshield wiper and sweep everything else, the anger, the doubt, the wonder, off her face. He could not decide whether she was attractive or not; somehow, one couldn't be aware of her face, but only of its expressions: changing, snapping, jerking expressions, like projections of a jolting film that unrolled somewhere beyond the muscles of her face.

He noticed a wide mouth, a short, impertinent nose turned up, dark, greenish eyes. There was a certain quality for which he looked unconsciously upon every face that passed him; a quality of awareness, of will, of purpose, a quality hard and precise; lacking it, the faces passed him unnoticed; with its presence — and he found it rarely — they stopped his eyes for a brief, curious moment of wonder. He saw it now, undefinable and unmistakable, upon her face; he liked that face, coldly, impersonally, almost indifferently; but sharply and quite personally, he liked the thing in her voice which he had heard before he entered.

"I'm sorry you heard me," she said, smiling, still with a hard little tone of reproach in her voice. "I don't want anyone to hear that... But then, it's you," she added. "So I guess it's all right."

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't know. Do you?"

"Yes, I think so. It is all right. What were you reciting?"

"Joan d'Arc. It's from an old German play I found. It's of no interest to you or anyone."

"Where are you going to do it?"

"I'm not doing it anywhere — yet. It's never been produced here. What I'm doing is the part of Polly Mae — five sides — in You're Telling Me at the Majestic. Opens February the nineteenth. Don't come. I won't give you any passes and I don't want you to see it."

"I don't want to see it. But I want to know how you got here."

"Oh..." She laughed, suddenly at ease. "Well, sit down... Oh, it's really you who should invite me to sit down." With which she was sitting on the edge of his table, her shoulders hunched, her legs flung out, sloppily contorted, one foot twisted, pointing in, and grotesquely graceful. "Don't worry," she said, "I haven't touched anything here. It's on account of Helen. She's my roommate. I have nothing against her, except the eight-hour working day."

"What?"

"I mean she's got to be home at five. I wish someone'd exploit her good and hard for a change, but no, she gets off every single evening. She's secretary to a warehouse around here. You have a marvelous room. Sloppy, but look at the space! You can't appreciate what it means to live in a clothes closet — or have you seen the other rooms in this house? Anyway, mine's on the fifth floor, just below you. And when I want to rehearse in the evenings, with Helen down there, I have to do it on the stairs. You see?"

"No."

"Well, go out and see how cold it is on the stairs today. And I saw your door half open. So I couldn't resist it. And then, it was too grand a chance up here to waste it on Polly Mae. Did you ever notice what space will do to your voice? I guess I forgot that someone would come here eventually... My name's Vesta Dunning. Yours is Howard Roark — it's plastered here all over the place — you have a funny handwriting — and you're an architect."

"So you haven't touched anything here?"

"Oh, I just looked at the drawings. There's one — it's crazy, but it's marvelous!" She was up and across the room in a streak, and she stopped, as if she had applied brakes at full speed, at the shelf he had built for his drawings. She always stopped in jerks, as if the momentum of her every movement would carry her on forever and it took a conscious effort to end it. She had the inertia of motion; only stillness seemed to require the impulse of energy.

"This one," she said, picking out a sketch. "What on earth ever gave you an idea like that? When I'm a famous actress, I'll hire you to build this for me."

He was standing beside her; she felt his sleeve against her arm as he took the sketch from her, looked at it, put it back on the shelf.

"When you're a famous actress," he said, "you won't want a house like that."

"Why?" she asked. "Oh, you mean because of Polly Mae, don't you?" Her voice was hard. "You're a strange person. I didn't think anyone would understand it like that, like I do... But you've heard the other also."

"Yes," he said, looking at her.

"You've heard it. You know. You know what it will mean when I'm a famous actress."

"Do you think your public will like it?"

"What?"

"Joan d'Arc."

"I don't care if they don't. I'll make them like it. I don't want to give them what they ask for. I want to make them ask for what I want to give. What are you laughing at?"

"Nothing. I'm not laughing. Go on."

"I know, you think it's cheap and shabby, acting and all that. I do too. But not what I'm going to make of it. I don't want to be a star with a permanent wave. I'm not good-looking anyway. That's not what I'm after. I hate her — Polly Mae. But I'm not afraid of her. I've got to use her to go where I'm going. And where I'm going — it's to the murder of Polly Mae. The end of her in all the minds that have been told to like her. Just to show them what else is possible, what can exist, but doesn't, but will exist through me, to make it real when God failed to... Look, I've never spoken of it to anyone, why am I telling it to you?... Well, I don't care if you hear this also, whether you understand it or not, and I think you understand, but what I want is..."

“... the weapon of that certainty I carry, unchangeable, untouched and unshared."

"Don't!" she screamed furiously. "Oh," she said softly, "how did you remember it? You liked it, didn't you?" She stood close to him, her face hard. "Didn't you?"

"Yes," he said. She was smiling- "Don't be pleased," he added. "It probably means that no one else will."

She shrugged. "To hell with that."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen- Why?"

"Don't people always ask you that when you speak of something that's important to you? They always ask me."

"Have you noticed that? What is it that happens to them when they grow older?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe we'll never know, you and L"

"Maybe."

She saw a package of cigarettes in his coat pocket, extended her hand for it, took it out, calmly offered it to him, and took one for herself- She stood smoking, looking at him through the smoke.

"Do you know," she said, "you're terribly good-looking."

"What?" He laughed. "It's the first time I've ever heard that."

"Well, you really aren't. Only I like to look at your face. It's so... untouchable. It makes me want to see you break down."

"Well, you're honest."

"So are you. And terribly conceited."

"Probably. Call it that. Why?"

"Because you didn't seem to notice that I paid you a compliment."

She was smiling at him openly, unconcerned and impersonal. There was no invitation, no coquetry in her face, only a cool, wondering interest. But, somehow, it was not the same face that had spoken of Joan d'Arc, and he frowned, remembering that he was tired.

"Don't pay me any compliments," he said, "if you want to come here again."

"May I come here again?" she asked eagerly.

"Look, here's what we'll do. I'll leave you my key in the mornings — I'd better lock the room from now on, I don't want anyone else studying my handwriting around here — I'll slip the key under your door. You can rehearse here all day long, but try to get out by seven. I don't want visitors when I get home. Drop the key in my mailbox."

She looked at him, her eyes radiant.

"It's the nastiest way I've ever heard anyone offering the nicest thing," she said. "All right, I won't bother you again. But leave the key. It's the third door down the hall, to the right."

"You'll have it tomorrow. Now run along. I have work to do."

"Can't I," she asked, "be a little late some evenings and overstep the seven-o'clock deadline by ten minutes?"

"I don't know. Maybe."

"Goodnight, Howard." She smiled at him from the threshold. "Thank you."

"Goodnight, Vesta."

In the spring, the windows of Roark's room stood open, and through the long, bright evenings Vesta Dunning sat on a windowsill, strands of lights twinkling through the dark silhouettes of the city behind her, the luminous spire of a building far away at the tip of her nose. Roark lay stretched on his stomach on the floor, his elbows propped before him, his chin in his hands, and looked up at her and at the glowing sky. Usually, he saw neither. But she had noticed that in him long ago and had come to take it for granted, without resentment or wonder. She breathed the cool air of the city and smiled secretly to herself, to the thought that he allowed her sitting there and that he did notice it sometimes.

She had broken her deadline often, remaining in his room to see him come home; at first, because she forgot the time in her work; then, because she forgot the work and watched the clock anxiously for the hour of his return. On some evenings, he ordered her out because he was busy; on others he let her stay for an hour or two; it did not seem to matter much, in either case, and this made her hate him, at first, then hate herself — for the joy of the pain of his indifference.

They talked lazily, aimlessly, of many things, alone over the city in the evenings. She talked, usually; sometimes, he listened. She had few friends; he had none. It was impossible to predict what subject she would fling out suddenly in her eager, jerking voice; everything seemed to interest her; nothing interested him. She would speak of plays, of men, of books, of holdups, of perfumes, of buildings; she would say suddenly: "What do you think of that gas-station murder?" "What gas-station murder?" "Don't you read the news? You should see what the Wynand papers are making of it. It's beautiful, what an orgy they're having with it." "Nobody reads the Wynand papers but housewives and whores." "Oh, but they have such nice grisly pictures!"... Then: "Howard, do you think that there is such a thing as infinity? Because if you try to think of it one way or the other, it doesn't make sense — and I thought that..." Then: "Howard, Howard, do you still think that I'll be a great actress someday? You said so once." Then her voice would be low, and even, and hard, and reluctant somehow.

He noticed that this was the one thing which made her hesitant and still and drawn. When she spoke of her future, she was like an arrow, stripped to a thin shaft, poised, ready, aimed at a single point far away, an arrow resting on so taut a string that one wished it to start upon its flight before the string would break. She hated to speak of it; but she had to speak of it, and something in him forced her to speak, and then she would talk for hours, her voice flat, unfriendly, without expression, but her lips trembling. Then she would not notice him listening; and then he would be listening, and his eyes would be open, as if a shutter had clicked off, and his eyes would be aware of her, of her thin, slouched shoulders, of the line of her throat against the sky, of her twisted [pose],[3] always wrong, always graceful.

She did not know that she had courage or purpose. She struggled as she was struggling because she had been born that way and she had no choice in the matter, nor the time to wonder about an alternative. She did not notice her own dismal poverty, nor her fear of the landlord, nor the days when she went without dinner. You're Telling Me, the show which she would not allow Roark to see, had closed within two weeks. She had made the rounds of theatrical producers, after that, grimly, stubbornly, without plaints or questions. She had found no work, and it gave her no anger and no doubts.

She was eighteen, without parents, censors, or morals, and she was, indifferently and incongruously, a virgin.

She was desperately in love with Roark.

She knew that he knew it, even though she had never spoken of it. He seemed neither flattered nor annoyed. She wondered sometimes why he allowed her to see him so often and why they were friends when she meant nothing to him. Then she thought that she did mean something, but what or how she could never decide. He liked her presence, but he liked it in that strange way which seemed to tell her that he would not turn his head were she to drop suddenly beyond the window ledge. Her body grew rigid sometimes with the sudden desire to touch his arm, to run her fingers on the soft edge of the collarbone in his open shirt; yet she knew that were she to sink her fingers into his freckled skin, were she to hold that head by its orange hair, she could never hold it close enough, nor reach it, nor own it. There were days when she hated him and felt relieved at the knowledge that she could exist without needing him. She always came back, for that look of indifferent curiosity in his eyes; it was indifferent, but it was curiosity and it was directed at her. She had learned it was more than others ever drew from him.

Sometimes, in the warm spring evenings, they would go together for a ride on the Staten Island Ferry. It was a trip he liked, and she loved and dreaded. She loved to be alone with him, late at night, on a half-empty deck, with the sky black and low, pressing down to her forehead, so that she felt lost in a vast darkness, in spite of the raw lights on deck, as if she could see in the dark, and see the hard, straight, slanting line of his nose, his chin against the black water beyond them, and the night gathered in little pools on his hollow cheeks. Then he would lean against the railing and stand looking at the city, at the high pillars of twinkling dots pierced through an empty sky where no buildings could be seen or seemed to have existed. Then she knew how it would feel to die, because she did not exist then, save in the knowledge of her nonbeing, because the boat did not exist, nor the water, nothing but the man at the railing and what he saw beyond those strings of light. Sometimes, she would lean close to him and let her hand on the railing press against his; he would not move his hand away; he would do worse; he would not notice it.

In the summer, she went away for three months with the road tour of a stock company. She did not write to him and he had not asked her to write. When she returned, in the fall, he was glad to see her, glad enough to show her that he was glad; but it did not make her happy, because he showed also that he knew she would return and return exactly as she did: hard, unsmiling, hungrier for him than ever, angry and tingling under the pleasure of the contempt in his slow, understanding smile.

She managed — by losing her patience and calling a producer the names she had always wanted to call him — to get a part in a new play, that fall. It was not a big part, but she had one good scene. She let Roark come to the opening. What he saw, for six minutes on that stage, was a wild, incredible little creature whom he barely recognized as Vesta Dunning, a thing so free and natural and simple that she seemed fantastic. She was unconscious of the room, of the eyes watching her, and of all rules: her postures absurd, reversed, her limbs swinging loosely, aimlessly — and ending in the precision of a sudden gesture, unexpected and thrillingly right, her voice stopping on the wrong words, hard in tenderness, smiling in sorrow, everything wrong and everything exactly as it had to be, inevitable in a crazy perfection of her own. And for six minutes, there was no theater and no stage, only a young, radiant voice too full of its own power and its own promise. One review, on the following day, mentioned the brilliant scene of a girl named Vesta Dunning, a beginner, it stated, worth watching. Vesta cut the review out of the paper and carried it about with her for weeks; she would take it out of her bag, in Roark's room, and spread it on the floor and sit before it, her chin in her hands, her eyes glowing; until, one night, he kicked it with his foot from under her face and across the room.

"You're disgusting," he said. "Why such concern over something someone said about you?"

"But, Howard, he liked me. I want them all to like me."

He shrugged. She picked up her review and folded it carefully, but never brought it to his room again.

The play settled down for a run of many months. And as the months advanced into winter, she found herself cursing the first hit in which she had ever appeared, watching the audience anxiously each night, looking hopefully for the holes of empty seats, waiting for signs of the evening when the show would close; the evening when she would be free to sit again in Roark's room and wait for his return from work and hear his steps up the stairs. Now she could only drop in on him, late at night, and she rushed home after the performance, without stopping to remove her makeup, ignoring the people in the subway, who stared at the bright-tan greasepaint on her face. She flew up the stairs, she burst into his room without knocking, she stood breathless, not knowing why she had had to hurry, not knowing what to do now that she was here; she stood, mascara smeared on her cheeks, her dress buttoned hastily on the wrong buttons. Sometimes he allowed her to remain there for a while. Sometimes he said: "You look like hell. Go take the filth off your face." She resolved fiercely not to see him too often; every night, she came up, promising herself to miss the next time.

On the evenings when he was willing to stop and rest and talk to her, it was she who often broke off the conversation and left him as soon as she could. She had accepted the feeling of her disappearance, which she had known so often with him; but she could not bear the feeling of his own destruction. On those evenings, between long stretches of work, he sat there before her, he spoke, he listened, he answered her and it seemed normal and reasonable, but she felt cold with panic suddenly, without tangible cause. It was as if something had wiped them out of existence; it was as if he did not know in what position his limbs had fallen as he lay stretched on his old cot, or whether he had any limbs; he did not know his words beyond the minute. He was vague, quiet, tired. She could have faced active hatred toward her, toward the room, toward the world. But the utter void of a complete indifference made her shudder and think of things she had learned vaguely in physics, things supposed to be impossible on earth: the absolute zero, the total vacuum. Sometimes, he would stop in the middle of a sentence and not know that he had stopped. He would sit still, looking at something so definite that she would turn and follow the direction of his glance but find nothing there. Then she would guess, not see, the hint of a shadow of a smile in the hard corners of his lips. She would see the long fingers of his hand grow tense and move strangely, stretching, spreading slowly. Then it would stop abruptly, and he would raise his head and ask: "Was I saying something?"

Long in advance, she had asked him to let her celebrate the New Year with him, the two of them together, she planned, alone in his room. He had promised. Then, one night, he told her quietly: "Look, Vesta, stay away from here, will you? I'm busy. Leave me alone for a couple of weeks."

"But, Howard," she whispered, her heart sinking, "the New Year..."

"That's ten days off. That will be fine. Come back New Year's Eve. I'll be waiting for you then."

She stayed away. And through the fury of her desire for him there grew slowly a burning resentment. She found that his absence was a relief. It was a gray relief, but it was comfortable. She felt as if she were returning to a green cow pasture after the white crystal of the north pole. She went to parties with her friends from the theater, she danced, she laughed, she felt insignificant and safe. The relief was not in his absence, but in the disappearance of that feeling of her own importance which his mere presence, even his contempt gave her. Without him, she did not have to look up to herself.

She decided that she would never see him again. She made the violence of her longing for him into the violence of her rebellion. She resolved to make of the one night, which she had awaited breathlessly for so many weeks, the symbol of her defiance: she would not spend New Year's Eve with him. She accepted an invitation to a party for that night. And at eleven o'clock, her head high, her lips set, enjoying the torture of her new hatred, she climbed firmly the stairs to his room, to tell him that she was not coming.

She knew, when she entered, that he had forgotten the day and the date. He was sitting on a low box by the window, one shoulder raised, contorted behind him, his elbow resting on the windowsill, his head thrown back, his eyes closed. She saw the fingers of his hand hanging at his shoulder, the long line of his thigh thrust forward, his knee bent, his leg stretched limply, slanting down to the floor. She had never seen him in such exhaustion. He raised his head slowly and looked at her. His eyes were not tired. She stood still under his glance. She had never loved him as in that moment.

"Hello, Vesta," he said. He seemed a little astonished to see her. She knew, in the bright clarity of one swift instant, that she was afraid of him; not of her love for him, but of something deeper, more important, more permanent in the substance of his being. She wanted to escape it. She wanted to be free of him. She felt her muscles become rigid with the spasm of all the hatred she had felt for him in the days of his absence and felt more sharply now. She said, her voice precise, measured, husky:

"I came to tell you that I'm not staying here tonight."

"Tonight?" he asked, astonished. "Why come to tell me that?"

"Because it's New Year's Eve, as of course you've forgotten."

"Oh, yes. So it is."

"And you can celebrate it alone, if at all. I'm not staying."

"No?" he said. "Why?"

"Because I'm going to a party." She knew, without his mocking glance, that it had sounded silly. She said through her teeth: "Or, if you want to know, because I don't want to see you."

He looked at her, his lower lids raised across his eyes.

“I don't want to see you," she said. "Not tonight or ever. I wanted you to know that. You see, here, I'm saying it to you. I don't want to see you. I don't need you. I want you to know that."

He did not seem surprised by the irrelevance of her words. He understood what had never been said between them, what should have been said to make her words coherent. He sat watching her silently.

"You think you know what I think of you, don't you?" she said, her voice rising. "Well, you don't. It isn't that. I can't stand you. You're not a human being. You're a monster of some kind. I would like to hurt you. You're abnormal. You're a perverted egotist. You're a monster of egotism. You shouldn't exist."

It was not the despair of her love. It was hatred and it was real. Her voice, clear and breaking, was free of him. But she could not move. His presence held her there, rooted to one spot. She threw her shoulders back, her arms taut behind her, bent slightly at the elbows, her hands closed, her wrists heavy, beating. She said, her voice choked:

"I'm saying this because I've always wanted to say it and now I can. I just want to say it, like this, to your face. It's wonderful. Just to say that you don't own me and you never will. Not you. Anyone but you. To say that you're nothing, you, nothing, and I can laugh at you. And I can loathe you. Do you hear me? You..."

And then she saw that he was looking at her as he had never looked before. He was leaning forward, his arm across his knee, and his hand, hanging in the air, seemed to support the whole weight of his body, a still, heavy, gathered weight. In his eyes, she saw for the first time a new, open, eager interest, an attention so avid that her breath stopped. What she saw in his face terrified her: it was cold, bare, raw cruelty. She was conscious suddenly, overwhelmingly of what she had never felt in that room before: that a man was looking at her.

She could not move from that spot. She whispered, her eyes closed:

"I don't want you... I don't want you..."

He was beside her. She was in his arms, her body jerked tight against his, his mouth on hers.

She knew that it was not love and that she was to expect no love. She knew that she did not want that which would happen to her, because she was afraid, because she had never thought of that as real. She knew also that none of this mattered, nothing mattered except his desire and that she could grant him his desire. When he threw her down on the bed, she thought that the sole thing existing, the substance of all reality for her and for everyone, was only to do what he wanted.

[One] evening, Keating climbed, unannounced, to Roark's room and knocked, a little nervously, and entered cheerfully, brisk, smiling, casual. He found Roark sitting on the windowsill, smoking, swinging one leg absentmindedly, and Vesta Dunning on the floor, by a lamp, sewing buttons on his old shirt.

"Just passing by," said Keating brightly, having acknowledged an introduction to Vesta, "just passing by with an evening to kill and happened to think that that's where you live, Howard, and thought I'd drop in to say hello, haven't seen you for such a long time."

"I know what you want," said Roark. "All right. How much?"

"How... What do you mean, Howard?"

"You know what I mean. How much do you offer?"

"I... Fifty a week," Keating blurted out involuntarily. This was not at all the elaborate approach he had prepared, but he had not expected to find that no approach would be necessary. "Fifty to start with. Of course, if you think it's not enough, I could maybe..."

"Fifty will do."

"You... you'll come with us, Howard?"

"When do you want me to start?"

"Why... God! as soon as you can. Monday?"

"All right."

Gee, Howard, thanks!" said Keating and wondered while pronouncing it why he was saying this, when Roark should have been the one to thank him, and wondered what it was that Roark always did to him to throw him off the track completely.

"Now listen to me," said Roark. "I'm not going to do any designing. No, not any. No details. No Louis XV skyscrapers. Just keep me off aesthetics if you want to keep me at all. I have nothing to learn about design at Francon & Heyer's. Put me in the engineering department. Send me on inspections. I want to get out in the field. That's all I can learn at your place. Now, do you still want me?"

"Oh, sure, Howard, sure, anything you say. You'll like the place, just wait and see. You'll like Francon. He's one of Cameron's men himself."

"He shouldn't boast about it."

"Well... that is..."

"No. Don't worry. I won't say it to his face. I won't say anything to anyone. I won't embarrass you. I won't preach any modernism. I won't say what I think of the work I'll see there. I'll behave. Is that what you wanted to know?"

"Oh, no, Howard, I know I can trust your good judgment, really, I wasn't worried, I wasn't even thinking of it."

"Well, it's all settled then? Goodnight See you Monday."

"Well, yes... that is... I... I'm in no special hurry to go, really I came to see you and...”

"What's the matter, Peter? Something bothering you?"

"Why, no... I..."

"You want to know why I'm doing it?" Roark looked at him and smiled, without resentment or interest. "Is that it? I'll tell you, if you want to know. I don't give a damn where I work next. There's no architect in town that I'd cross the street to work for. And since I have to work somewhere, it might as well be your Francon — if I can get what I want from you. Don't worry. I'm selling myself, and I'll play the game that way — for the time being."

"Really, Howard, you don't have to look at it like that. There's no limit to how far you can go with us, once you get used to it. You'll see, for a change, what a real office looks like. After Cameron's, you'll find such a scope for your talent that..."

"We'll shut up about that, won't we, Peter?"

"Oh... I... I didn't mean to... I didn't mean anything." And he kept still. He did not quite know what to say nor what he should feel. It was a victory, but it was hollow

somehow. Still, it was a victory and he felt that he wanted to feel affection for Roark.

Keating smiled warmly, cheerily, and he saw Vesta smiling in answer, in approval and understanding; but Roark would not smile; Roark looked at him steadily, his gray eyes at their most exasperating, without expression, without hint of thought or feeling.

"Gee, Howard," Keating tried with resolute brightness, "it will be wonderful to have you with us. Just like in the old days. Just like..." It petered out; he had nothing to say.

"It's wonderful of you to be doing this, Mr. Keating," said Vesta. She was not looking at Roark.

"Oh, not at all, Miss Dunning, not at all." It was like a shot in the arm to Keating, and the sudden, supple lift of his head was his own again, his usual own, in the manner with which he moved everywhere else. He loved Roark in that moment. "Say, Howard, how about our going out for a little drink somewhere, Miss Dunning and you and I, just sort of to celebrate the occasion?"

"Swell," said Vesta. "I'd love to."

"Sorry, Peter," said Roark. "That isn't part of the job."

"Well, as you wish," said Keating, rising. "See you Monday, Howard." He looked at Roark, and his eyes narrowed, and he smiled, too pleasantly. "Nine o'clock, Howard. Do be on time. That's one thing we insist upon. We've had a time clock installed for the draftsmen — my idea — you won't mind, of course?" He swung his overcoat closed, with a swift, sweeping gesture he had learned from Francon, a gesture that seemed to display the luster of the cloth and the cost of it and everything that the cost implied. He stood buttoning it casually, with straight fingertips, not looking down at his hands. "I shall be responsible for you, Howard. You'll be under me personally, by the way. Goodnight, Howard."

He left. Roark lit a cigarette and sat down, one foot on the windowsill, his knee bent, his head thrown back. Vesta looked at the curve of his neck, at the smoke rising in a straight, even streak with his even breathing. She knew that he had forgotten her presence.

"Why did you have to act like that?" she snapped.

"Huh?" he asked, his eyes closed.

"Why did you have to insult Mr. Keating?"

"Oh? Did I?"

"It was darn decent of him. And he tried so hard to be friendly. I thought he's such a nice person. Why did you have to go out of your way to be nasty? Can't you ever be human? After all, he was doing you a favor. And you accepted it. You took it and you treated him like dirt under your feet. You... Are you listening to me, Howard?"

"No."

She stood looking at him, her hands tight, grasping the cloth of her blouse at her shoulders, pulling it savagely so that she felt the collar cutting the back of her neck. She tried to think of something that would bring him to the humiliation of anger. She couldn't. She felt the anger growing within her instead, and she forced herself to say nothing until she could keep her voice from shaking.

It was not the scene she had witnessed that made her hate him for the moment. It was something she had felt present in that scene, something in him which she could not name, the thing she dreaded, the thing she had fought — and loved — for a year.

That year of her life had given her no happiness; only bewilderment and doubts and fear; a fear underscored by rare moments of a joy which was too much to bear... She never felt the distance between them as she felt it lying in his arms, in his bed. It was as if the nights they shared gave her no rights, not the right to the confidence of a friend, not the right of the consideration of an acquaintance, not even the right to the courtesy of a stranger passing her on the street. He listened silently to her breathless voice whispering to him, when she could not stop it: "I love you, Howard... I love you... I love you..." her lips pressed to his arm, to his shoulder, as if her mouth were telling it to his skin, and it was not from her nor for him. She could be grateful only that he heard. He never answered. She spoke to him of his meaning to her, of her life, of every thought, every spring of her life. He said nothing. He shared nothing- He never came to her for consolation, for encouragement, not even as to a mirror to reflect him and to listen. He had never known the need of someone listening- He had never known need. He did not need her. It was this — hidden, unconfessed, unacknowledged, but present, there, there within her — which made her afraid- She would have given anything, she would have lost him happily afterwards, if only she could see once one sign, one hint of his need for her, for anything of her. She could never see it.

She asked sometimes, her arms about him: "Howard, do you love me?" He answered: "No." She expected no other answer; somehow, the simple honesty in his voice, as he answered, the gentleness, the quiet unconsciousness of any cruelty made her accept it without hurt.

"Howard, do you think you'll ever love anyone?"

"No."

"You're too selfish!"

"Oh, yes."

"And conceited."

"No. I'm too selfish to be conceited."

Yet he was not indifferent to her. There were moments when she felt his attention, to her voice, to her every movement in the room, and behind his silence a question mark that was almost admiration. In such moments, she was not afraid of him and she felt closer to him than to any being in the world. Those were the moments when she did not laugh and did not feel comfortable, but felt happy instead and spoke of her work. She had had several parts after her first small success; they were not good parts and the shows had not lasted, and on some she had received no notice at all. But she was moving forward, and the more she hated the empty words she had to speak each evening in some half-empty theater, the more eagerly she could think of things she would do some day, when she reached the freedom to do them, of the women she would play, of Joan d'Arc. She found that she could speak of it to Roark, that it was easier, speaking of it to him than dreaming it secretly. His mere presence, his silence, his eyes, still and listening to her, gave it a reality she could not create alone. She was so aware of him, when she spoke of it, that she could forget his presence and yet feel it in all of her body, in the sharp, quickened, exhilarated tension of her muscles, and she could read the words of Joan d'Arc aloud, turned away from him, not seeing him, not knowing him, but reading it to him for him, with every vibration of her ecstatic voice. "Howard," she said sometimes, breaking off her lines, her back turned to him, not feeling the necessity to face him, because he was everywhere around her, and his name was only a mechanical convention for the thing she was addressing, "there are things that are normal and comfortable and easy, and that's most of life for all of us. And then there are also things above it, things so much more than human, and not many can bear it and then not often, but that's the only reason for living at all. Things that make you very quiet and still and it's difficult to breathe. Can I explain that to the people who've never seen it? Can I show it to them? Can I? That's what I'll do someday with her, with Joan d'Arc, to make them look up, up, Howard... You see it, don't you?" And when she looked at him, his eyes were wide and open to her, and in that instant there were no secrets in him hidden from her, and she knew him, knowing also that she would lose him again in a moment, and she felt that her legs could not hold her, and she was sitting on the floor, her head buried against his knees, and she was whispering: "Howard, I'm afraid of you... I'm afraid of myself because of you... Howard... Howard..." She felt his lips on the back of her neck and she felt a thing incredible from him, incredible and right, right only in that moment: tenderness.

Then she knew, not that he loved her, but that he granted her a strange value, not for him, but in herself alone, apart from him, not needing her, but admiring her. And she felt at once that this was right and what she wanted and what she loved in him, and also that it was inhuman, bewildering, cold, and not the love others called love. She felt both things, confused, inextricable, and she knew only, with a certainty beyond explanation, that she was happy in that moment and would hate him for it when the moment passed and life became normal again.

That norm, the hours succeeding one another, the days and the months, were becoming easier and pleasanter for her; the pleasanter they became the heavier was the burden of a mere thought about him. She had never had many friends, but she was acquiring them now, because people in her profession, in the producers' offices, in the drugstores where actors gathered, were beginning to know her, to notice her and to like her. She was asked to parties, to luncheons, she was given passes to shows. He would never accompany her. He refused to meet her friends. The few whom she introduced to him told her afterwards that they had never encountered a man more unpleasant than that friend of hers... what was his name? Roark? who does he think he is? — even though Roark had said very little to them and had been very polite. He would go with her to the theater sometimes and would seldom enjoy the play. He would never go to a movie nor to a speakeasy, nor dance, nor accept invitations.

"What for, Vesta? I have nothing to talk about."

"Don't you want to meet people, to know them, to exchange ideas?"

"I know them. I haven't any ideas to exchange."

"Don't you ever get bored?"

"Always. Terribly. Except when I'm alone."

"You're not normal, Howard!"

"No."

“Why don't you do something about it? It bothers everyone who meets you."

"It doesn't bother me."

There had been — in all their life together — no gay memories, no tender moments to relive, no companionship, very little laughter; there had been "no fun," she said to herself sometimes, and felt dimly guilty of the word, then angry. When she was away from him, among people, the thought of him was like a weight in her mind, spoiling the comfortable gaiety of the moment. It was like a silent reproach somewhere — and she defied it by drinking a little too much and laughing too loudly. After all, she said to herself, looking at the couples dancing around her, one could not be a Joan d'Arc all the time.

And tonight, alone with him after Keating had left, she felt the resentment rising even here, in his room, in his presence. She looked at him, angry, trying to think of how she could make him understand, angry because she knew that he understood it already, and it was useless, and no word could reach him.

"Howard, listen to me please. Why did you have to do that? Why couldn't you be nice to Mr. Keating?"

"What have I done?"

"It isn't what you did. It's what you didn't do."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing... everything! Why do you hate him?"

"But I don't hate him."

"Well, that's it! Why don't you hate him at least?"

"For what?"

"Just to give him something. You can't like anyone, so you can at least be courteous enough to show it. And kind enough."

"I'm not kind, Vesta."

"How do you expect to get along in the world? You have to live with people, you know. Look, I... I want to understand. There are two ways. You can join people or you can fight them. But you don't seem to be doing either."

"What is it? What are you after specifically right now?"

"Well, for instance, why couldn't you go out with Keating for a drink? When he asked you so nicely. And I wanted to go."

"But I didn't."

"Why not?"

"What for?"

"Do you always have to have a purpose for everything? Do you always have to be so serious? Can't you ever do things, just do them, without reason, just like everybody? Can't you... oh, for God's sake, can't you be simple and silly, just once?"

"No."

"What's the matter with you, Howard? Can't you be natural?"

"But I am."

"Can't you relax, just once in your life?"

He looked at her and smiled, because he was sitting on the windowsill, leaning sloppily against the wall, his legs sprawled, his limbs loose, in perfect relaxation.

"That's not what I mean," she said angrily. "That's just sheer laziness. I don't know whether you're the tensest or the laziest man on earth."

"Well, make up your mind."

"It won't make any difference, if I do."

"No."

"Howard, do you ever think of how hard this is for me?"

"No."

"I always think of how you'll react to everything I do."

"Don't. I don't like it."

"But it is hard for me, Howard."

"Leave me then."

"You want me to?"

"No. Not yet."

"But you'd let me go, rather than do anything for me?"

"Yes."

"Howard!"

"But you haven't asked me to do anything for you."

"Well... oh, God damn you, Howard, it's so difficult to speak to you! I know what I want to say and I don't know how to say it!"

"That's because you don't want to know what you're really trying to say. Not yet. But I know it and I'm not going to help you say it. Because when you do say it, I'll throw you out of here. Only it won't be necessary. You won't want to be here then... Is that of any help?"

He had said it evenly, quietly, without emphasis or concern. She felt cold with panic. It had suddenly been too near, that possibility of losing him, and she was not prepared to face it. She stood, her hands clutching the shirt at her sides, moving convulsively through the cloth, hanging on, because she wanted to reach for him, to grasp him, to hold him. But she could not trust herself to touch him, not then, because she would betray too much. After a while, she walked to him, and then she could slip her arms gently about him and put her chin on his shoulder, her head against his.

"All right, Howard," she whispered, "I won't say anything... Can I... can I congratulate you on the job, at least? I'm really terribly glad you got it."

"Thanks."

"Look, Howard, are you going to move out of here? I'd hate to see you go, but you can get a better place somewhere close by or maybe right in the building."

"No. I'm staying here."

"But on fifty a week you can afford not to live in this horrible dump. And we'll see each other just as often."

"I'll need every cent of that money."

"But why?"

"Because I won't last there."

She looked at him in consternation.

"Howard, why do you start in with an attitude like that? Are you planning to quit already?"

"No. They'll fire me." "When?" "Sooner or later." "Why will they fire you?"

"That would take much too long to explain."

"You're not awfully glad of the job, are you?"

"I expected it."

"It's pretty grand, though, isn't it? I've heard of them vaguely — Francon & Heyer. They're really awfully big and famous, aren't they?"

"They are."

"You could really get somewhere with them."

"I doubt it."

"But isn't it going to be better than that hopeless place where you worked? Won't you be happier in a real, important office, successful and respected and..."

"We'll keep still about that, Vesta, and we'll do it damn fast."

"Oh, Howard!" she cried, losing all control. "I can't talk to you at all! What's the matter with you tonight?"

"Why tonight?"

"No, that's true! It's not tonight! It's always! I can't stand it, Howard!"

He looked at her without moving. He asked:

"What do you want?"

"Listen, Howard..." she whispered gently. Her fingers were rolled together in a little ball at her throat, her eyes were wide and pleading and defenseless; she had never looked lovelier. "Listen, my darling, my dearest one, I love you. I'm not reproaching you. I'm only begging you. I want you. I've never really had you, Howard. I want to know you. I want to understand. I'm... lonely."

"I'm not a crutch, Vesta."

"But I want you to help me! I want to know that you want to help me!"

"I wouldn't, if I were you. If I come to wanting to help a person, I'll not want that person nor to help any longer."

"Howard!" she screamed. "Howard, how can you say a thing like that!"

And then she was sobbing suddenly, before she could stop it, sobbing openly, convulsively, not trying to hide the single, shameful fact of pain, sobbing with her head against the crook of his elbow. He said nothing and did not move. Her head slipped down to his hand, she pressed her face against it, she could feel her tears on the skin of his hand. The hand did not move; it did not seem alive. When she raised her head, at last, empty of tears, of sounds, even of pain, the pain swallowed under a numb stupor, only her throat still jerking silently, when she looked at him, she saw a face that had not changed, had not been reached, had no answer to give her. He asked:

"Can you go now?"

She nodded, humbly, almost indifferently, indifferent to her own pain and to the lack of answer which was such an eloquent answer. She backed slowly to the door, she went out silently, her eyes fastened to the last moment, incredulous and bewildered, upon his face, upon the vast, incomprehensible cruelty of his face.

At the end of March, a new play opened in New York and on the following morning the dramatic reviews dedicated most of their space to Vesta Dunning.

Her part was described officially as the second feminine lead, but for those who saw the opening performance there had been no leads and no other actors in the cast and hardly any play: there had been only a miracle, the impossible made real, a woman no one had ever met, yet everyone knew and recognized and believed boundlessly for two and a half hours. It was the part of a wild, stubborn, sparkling, dreadful girl who drove to despair her family and all those approaching her. Vesta Dunning streaked across the stage with her swift, broken, contorted gait; or she stood still, her body an arc, her arms flung out, her voice a whisper; or she destroyed a profound speech with one convulsed shrug of her thin shoulders; or she laughed and all the words on that stage were wiped off by her laughter. She did not hear the applause afterwards. She bowed to it, not knowing that anyone applauded her, not knowing that she bowed.

She did not hear what was said to her in the dressing room that night. She did not wait for the reviews. She ran away to find Roark, who was waiting for her at the stage door, and she seized his arm to help her stand up, but she said nothing, and they rode home in a cab, silently, not touching each other. Then, in his room, she stood before him, she looked at him, she was speaking, not knowing that she spoke aloud, words like fragments of the thing that was bursting within her:

"Howard... that was it... there it was... you see, I liked her... she's the first one I ever liked doing... it was right... oh, Howard, Howard! It was right... I don't care what they'll say... I don't care about the reviews... whether it runs or not, I've done it once... I've done it... and that's the way now, Howard... it's open... to Joan d'Arc... they'll let me do it... they'll let me do it someday..."

He drew her close to him, and she stood while he sat, his arms tight about her, his face buried against her stomach, holding her, holding something that was not to be lost. In that moment, she forgot the fear that had been following her for days, the fear of the slow, open, inevitable growth of his indifference.

He did not tell Vesta about it for several days. He had seen her seldom in the last few months; her success was working a change in her, which he did not want to see. When he told her at last that he had lost his job, she looked at him coldly and shrugged: "It may teach you a few things for the future."

"It did," said Roark.

"Don't expect me to sympathize. Whatever it was that you did, I'm sure you jolly well deserved it."

"I did."

"For God's sake, Howard, when are you going to come down to earth? You can't think that you're the only one who's always right and everybody else wrong!"

"I'm too tired to quarrel with you tonight, Vesta."

"You've got to learn to curb yourself and cooperate with other people. That's it, cooperate. People aren't as stupid as you think. They appreciate real worth when there's any to appreciate."

"I don't doubt it."

"Stop talking as if you're throwing sentences in the wastebasket! Stop being so damn smug! Don't you realize what's happened to you? You had a chance at a real career with a real, first-class firm and you didn't have sense enough to keep it! You had a chance to get out of the gutter and you threw it away! You had to be Joan d'Arc'ish all over the place and..."

"Shut up, Vesta," he said quietly.

When he came home in the evenings, Vesta was there sometimes, waiting for him. She asked: "Found anything?" When he answered, "No," she put her arms around him and said she felt sure he would find it. But secretly, involuntarily, hating herself for it, she felt glad of his failure: it was a vindication of her own unspoken thoughts, of the new appearance the world was presenting to her, of her new security, of her reconciliation with the world, a security which he threatened, a reconciliation against which he stood as a reproach, even though he said nothing and, perhaps, saw nothing. She did not want to acknowledge these thoughts; she needed him, she would not be torn away from him. She could not tell whether he guessed. She knew only that his eyes were watching her, and he said nothing.

Vesta entered the room in a streak, without knocking, and stopped abruptly, her skirt flying in a wide triangle and flapping back tightly against her knees. She stood, her mouth half open, her hair thrown back, as she always stood — as if in a gust of wind, her thin body braced, her eyes wide, impatient, full of a flame that seemed to flicker in the wind.

"Howard! I have something to tell you! Where on earth have you been? I've come up three times this evening. You weren't looking for work at this hour, were you? — you couldn't."

"I..." he began, but she went on:

"Something wonderful's happened to me! I'm signing the contract tomorrow. I'm going to Hollywood."

He sat silently, his arms on the table before him, and looked at her.

“I'm going as soon as the play closes," she said, and threw her hands up, and whirled on one toe, her skirt flaring like a dancer's. "I didn't tell you, but they took a test of me — weeks ago — and I saw it, I don't really look very pretty, but they said they could fix that and that I had personality and they'll give me a chance, and I'm signing a contract!"

"For how long?" he asked.

"Oh, that? That's nothing. It's for five years, but it's only options, you know, I don't have to stay there that long."

He snapped his finger against the edge of a sheet of newspaper and the click of his nail sent it across the table with a thin, whining crackle, like a string plucked, and he said nothing.

"Oh, no," she said, too emphatically, "I'm not giving up the stage. It's just to make some quick money."

"You don't need it. You said you could have any part you chose next year."

"Sure. I can always have that — after those notices."

"Next year, you could do what you've wanted to do."

"I'm doing that."

"So I see."

"Well, why not? It's such a chance."

"For what?"

"Oh, for... for... Hell, I don't see why you have to disapprove!"

"I haven't said that."

"Oh, no! You never say anything. Well, what's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. Only that you're lying."

"How?"

"You're not going for the money."

"Well... well, for what then? And isn't it better — whatever you mean than to go for money? I thought you wouldn't approve of my going after money."

"No, Vesta. You thought I might approve. That's why you said it."

"Well, is it all right if it's for the money?"

"It might be. But that's not what you're after."

"What am I after?"

"People."

"What people?"

"Millions of them. Carloads. Tons. Swarms of them. To look at you. To admire you. No matter what they're admiring you for."

"You're being silly. I don't know what you're driving at. And besides, if I make good, I don't have to play in stupid movies. I can select my parts. I can do as much as on the stage. More. Because it will reach so many more people and..." He was laughing. "Oh, all right, don't be so smart! You'll see. I can do what I want on the screen, too. Just give me time. I'll do everything I want."

"Joan d'Arc?"

"Why not? Besides, it'll help. I'll make a name for myself, then watch me come back to the stage and do Joan d'Arc! And furthermore..."

"Look, Vesta, I'm not arguing. You're going. That's fine. Don't explain too much."

"You don't have to look like a judge dishing out a life sentence! And I don't care whether you approve or not!"

"I haven't said I didn't."

"I thought you'd be glad for me. Everybody else was. But you have to spoil it."

"How?"

"Oh, how! How do you always manage to spoil everything? And here I was so anxious to tell you! I couldn't wait. Where on earth have you been all evening, by the way?"

"Working."

"What? Where?"

"In the office."

"What office? Have you found a job?"

"Two weeks ago."

"Oh!... Well, how nice...Doing what?"

"Well, what do you suppose?"

"Oh, you got a real job? With an architect? So you found one to take you after all?"

"Yes."

"Well... it's wonderful... I'm awfully glad... Oh, I'm awfully glad..." She heard her own voice, flat and empty and with a thin, strange, distant note in it, a note that was anger without reason; she wondered whether it sounded like that to him also. She said quickly: "I hope you're set this time. I hope you'll be successful someday — like everybody else."

He leaned back and looked at her. She stood defiantly, holding his eyes, saying nothing, flaunting her consciousness of the meaning of his silence.

"You're not glad that I got it," he said. "You hope I won't last. That's the next best to the thing you really hope — that I'll be successful someday like everybody else."

"You're talking nonsense. I don't know what you're saying."

He sat, looking at her, without moving. She shrugged and turned away; she picked up the newspaper and flipped its pages violently, as if the loud crackling could shut out the feeling of his eyes on her.

"All right," he said slowly. "Now say it."

"What?" she snapped, whirling around.

"What you've wanted to say for a long time."

She flung the newspaper aside. She said: "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Say it, Vesta."

"Oh, you're impossible! You're..." And then her voice dropped suddenly, and she spoke softly, simply, pleading: "Howard, I love you. I don't know what it is. I don't know why it should be like this. I love you and I can't stand you. And also, I wouldn't love you if I could stand you, if you were any different. But what you are — that frightens me, Howard. I don't know why. It frightens me because it's something in me which I don't want. No. Because it's something in me which I do want, but I'd rather not want it, and... Oh, you can't understand any of it!"

"Go on."

"Yes, damn you, you do understand!... Oh, don't look at me like that!... Howard, Howard, please listen. It's this: you want the impossible. You are the impossible yourself — and you expect the impossible. I can't feel human around you. I can't feel simple, natural, comfortable. And one's got to be comfortable sometime! It's like... like as if you had no weekdays at all in your life, nothing but Sundays, and you expect me always to be on my Sunday behavior. Everything is important to you, everything is great, significant in some way, every minute, even when you keep still. God, Howard, one can't stand that! It becomes unbearable... if... if I could only put it into words!"

"You have. Very nicely."

"Oh, please, Howard, don't look like that! I'm not... I'm not criticizing you. I understand. I know what you want of life. I want it too. That's why I love you. But, Howard! You can't be that all the time! God, not all the time! One's got to be human also."

"What?"

"Human! One has to relax. One gets tired of the heroic."

"What's heroic about me?"

"Nothing. Everything!... No, you don't do anything. You don't say anything. I don't know. It's only what you make people feel in your presence."

"What?"

"The abnormal. The overnormal. The strain. When I'm with you — it's always like a choice. A choice between you — and the rest of the world. I don't want such a choice. I'm afraid because I want you too much — but I don't want to give up everybody, everything. I want to be a part of the world. They like me, they recognize me now, I don't want to be an outsider. There's so much that's beautiful in the world, and gay and simple and pleasant. It's not all a fight and a renunciation. It doesn't have to be. It is — with you."

"What have I ever renounced?"

"Oh, you'll never renounce anything. You'll walk over corpses for what you want. But it's what you've renounced by never wanting it. What you've closed your eyes to — what you were born with your eyes closed to."

"Don't you think that perhaps one can't have one's eyes open to both?"

"Everybody else can! Everybody but you. You're so old, Howard. So old, so serious... And there's something else. What you said about my going after people. Look, Howard, don't other people mean anything to you at all? I know, you like some of them and you hate others, but neither really makes much difference to you. That's what's horrifying. Everyone's a blank around you. They're there, but they don't touch you in any way, not in any single way. You're so closed, so finished. It's unbearable. All of us react upon one another in some way, I don't mean that we have to be slaves of others, or be influenced, or changed, no, not that, but we react. You don't. We're aware of others. You're not. You don't hate people — that's the ghastliness of it. If you did — it would be simple to face. But you're worse. You're a fiend. You're the real enemy of all mankind — because one can't do anything against your kind of weapon — your utter, horrible, inhuman indifference!"

She stood waiting. She stood, as if she had slapped his face and triumphantly expected the answer. He looked at her. She saw that his lips were opening wide, his mouth loose, young, easy; she could not believe for a moment that he was laughing. She did not believe what he said either. He said:

"I'm sorry, Vesta."

Then she felt frightened. He said very gently:

"I didn't want it to come to this. I think I knew also that it would, from the first. I'm sorry. There are chances I shouldn't take. You see — I'm weak, like everybody else. I'm not closed enough nor certain enough. I see hope sometimes where I shouldn't. Now forget me. It will be easier than it seems to you right now."

"You... you don't mean for me... to leave you?"

"Yes."

"Oh, no, Howard! Not like that! Not now!"

"Like that, Vesta. Now."

"Why?"

"You know that"

"Howard..."

"I think you know also that you'll be glad of it later. Maybe tomorrow. Just forget me. If you want to see me affected by someone else — well, I'll tell you that I'm sorry."

"No, you aren't. Not to lose me."

"No. Not any more. But to see what will happen to you... no. Not that either. But this: to see what will never happen to you."

"What?"

"That is what you don't want to know. So forget it."

"Oh, Howard! Howard..."

Her voice broke, as the consciousness of what had happened, like a blow delayed, reached her at last. She stood, her shoulders drooping forward, her hands hanging uselessly, awkwardly, suddenly conscious of her hands and not knowing where to put them, her body huddled and loose, looking at him, her eyes clear and too brilliant, her mouth twisted. She swallowed slowly, with a hard effort, as if her whole energy had gone into the movement of her throat, into the purpose of knowing that her throat could be made to move. It was a bewilderment of pain, helpless and astonished, as an animal wondering what had happened, knowing only that it was hurt, but not how or why, puzzled that it should be hurt and that this was the shape of pain.

"Howard..." she whispered softly, as simply as if she were addressing herself and no stress, no emotion, no clarity of words were necessary. "It's funny... what is it?... It couldn't happen like this... and it did... I think I'm hurt, Howard... terribly... I want to cry or do something... and I can't... What is it?... I can't do anything before you... I want to say something... I should... it doesn't happen like this... and I can't... It's funny... isn't it?... You understand?"

"Yes," he said softly.

"Are you hurt too?" she asked, suddenly eager, as if she had caught at the thread of a purpose. "Are you? Are you? You must be!"

"Yes, Vesta."

"No, you aren't! You don't say it as it would sound if you... You can't be hurt. You can never be hurt!"

"I suppose not."

"Howard, why? Why do this? When I need you so much!"

"To end it before we start hating each other. You've started already."

"Oh, no, Howard! No! I don't! Not now! Can't you believe me?"

"I believe you. Not now. But the moment you leave this room. And at every other time."

"Howard, I'll try..."

"No, Vesta. Those things can't be tried. You'd better go now."

"Howard, can't you feel... sorry for me? I know, it's a terrible thing to say. I wouldn't want it from anyone else. But that... that's all I can have from you... Howard? Can't you?"

"No, Vesta."

She spread her hands out helplessly, still wondering, a bewildered question remaining in her eyes, and moved her lips to speak, but didn't, and turned, small, awkward, uncertain, and left.

She walked down the stairs and knew that she would cry in her room, cry for many hours. But one sentence he had spoken came back to her, one sentence clear and alone in the desolate emptiness of her mind: "You'll be glad of it later. Maybe tomorrow." She knew that she was glad already. It terrified her, it made the pain sharper. But she was glad.

He had not seen Vesta again before she left for California. She did not write to him and he had long since forgotten her, except for wondering occasionally, when passing by a movie theater, why he'd heard of no film in which she was to appear. Hollywood seemed to have forgotten her also; she was given no parts.

Then, in the spring, he saw her picture in the paper; she stood, dressed in a polka-dot bathing suit, holding coyly, unnaturally a huge beach ball over her head; except for the pose, it was still Vesta, the odd, impatient face, the wild hair, the ease and freedom in the lines of the body; but one had to look twice to notice it; the photograph was focused upon her long, bare legs, as all the photographs appearing in that corner of that section had always been. The caption read: "This cute little number is Sally Ann Blainey, Lux Studio's starlet. Before she was discovered by Lux scouts, Miss Blainey achieved some measure of distinction on the Broadway stage, where she was known as Vesta Dunning. The studio bosses, however, have given her a less ungainly name." It was not mentioned when she would be put to work.

"Child of Divorce" was released in January 1927, and it made film history. It was not an unusual picture and it starred an actor who was quite definitely on his downgrade, but it had Sally Ann Blainey in a smaller part. Lux Studios had not expected much of Sally Ann Blainey; she had not been advertised, and a week after the picture's completion her contract had been dropped. But on the day after the film's release, she was signed again, on quite different terms, and her name appeared in electric lights upon the marquees of theaters throughout the country, over that of the forgotten star.

Roark went to see the picture. It was still Vesta, as he had seen her last. She had lost nothing and learned nothing. She had not learned the proper camera angles, she had not learned the correct screen makeup; her mouth was too large, her cheeks too gaunt, her hair uncombed, her movements too jerky and angular. She was like nothing ever seen in a film before, she was a contradiction to all standards, she was awkward, crude, shocking, she was like a breath of fresh air. The studio had expected her to be hated; she was suddenly worshiped by the public. She was not pretty, nor gracious, nor gentle, nor sweet; she played the part of a young girl not as a tubercular flower, but as a steel knife. A reviewer said that she was a cross between a medieval pageboy and a gun moll. She achieved the incredible: she was the first woman who ever allowed herself to make strength attractive on the screen.

For a few moments after he left the theater, Roark almost wished to have her back. But he forgot it by the time he got home. Afterwards, he remembered, sometimes, that magnificent performance; he wondered whether he had been wrong and she would win her battle, after all; but he could no longer feel it as a thing too close to him.

In the daytime, Cameron's feelings were not expressed in any way, save, perhaps, in the fact that he seldom called Roark by name. "Here, pokerface," he would say, "get this done and step on it." "Look, carrot-top, what in hell did you mean by this? Lost your senses, have you?" "That's great. That's splendid. Excellent. Now throw it in the wastebasket and do it over again, you damned icicle." Loomis was baffled and Simpson scratched his head, wondering: a casual familiarity toward an employee was not a thing that Simpson had ever observed in his forty years of service with Cameron.

At night, when the work was done and the others had gone, Cameron asked Roark, sometimes, to remain. Then they sat together for hours in his dim office, and Cameron talked. The radiators of the building were usually out of order and Cameron had an old Franklin heater burning in the middle of the room. He would pull his chair to the heater, and Roark would sit on the floor, the bluish glow of the flame upon the knuckles of his hands clasping his knees. When he spoke, Cameron was no longer an old man starving slowly in an office near the Battery; nor was he a great architect scorning his vain competitors; he was the only builder in the world and he was reshaping the face of America. His words pressed down like the plunger of a fuse box setting off the explosion; and the explosion swept out the miles, the thousands of miles of houses upon which every sin of their owners stood written as a scar, as a sore running in crumbling plaster; the houses like mirrors, flaunting to the streets the naked soul of those within and the ugliness of it; the vanity, gathering soot upon twisted, flowered ledges, the ostentation, swelling like a goiter in bloated porches, the fear, the fear of the herd, cringing under columns stuck there because all the neighbors had them, the stupidity, choking in fetid air under the gables of garrets. After the explosion, his voice, his hands moving slowly as he spoke, like planes smoothing unseen walls, raised broad, clean streets and houses in the likeness of what those within should be and would be made to become by these houses: straight and simple and honest, wise and clear in their purpose, copying nothing, following nothing but the needs of those living within — and let the needs of no [one] living be those of his neighbor! To give them, Cameron was saying, what they want, but first to teach them to want — to want with their own eyes, their own brains, their own hearts. To teach them to dream — then give the dream to them in steel and mortar, and let them follow it with dreams in muscle and blood. To make them true, Howard, to make them true to themselves and give them the selves, to kill the slave in them, Howard, Howard, don't you see? — the slaves of slaves served by slaves for the sake of slaves!

He was the only builder in the world, as he spoke, but even he was not there, in that room, nor the boy who sat, taut and silent, at his feet; only that thing, that truth trembling in his hard voice, was present; he spoke of that alone and, speaking of it, he made real, tangible in the dark room, his own being and that of the boy. The heater hissed softly, with little puffing, choked explosions. The two lines on Cameron's face stood out like black gashes on the lighted patches of his cheeks, two patches floating upon the blackness that swallowed his forehead, his eyes, his beard. There was, turned up to him from the dark, a wedge of soft, living gold cut by the fringe of long lashes, then darkness again like a soft black stone and, rising upon it, a luminous vein in the stone cut as a cameo, a chin with a long mouth, a speck of fire trembling on the lower lip.

He never spoke again of his past nor of Roark's future. He never said why he talked to him thus through the long winter evenings, admitting no questions and no wonder upon it, not saying what necessity drove him to speak nor what granted Roark the right to listen. He never said whether he cared for Roark's presence there or in the world, whether it mattered to him that Roark heard or existed. Only once did he say suddenly, at the end of a long speech: "... and, yes, it may seem strange to give a life for the sake of steel skeletons and windows, your life also — my dearest one — because it's necessary..." He had gone on to speak about windows, and he had never said it again.

But in the mornings, as Cameron entered his office sharply on the dot of nine, he would stop first at the door of the drafting room, throw a long, sharp glance at the men, then slam the door behind him. Loomis had said once, not suspecting the accuracy of what he thought to be a good joke, that Cameron had the look of a man who'd seen a miracle and wanted to make sure it hadn't gone-Then came the morning when Cameron was late. The clock on the wall of the drafting room was moving past the mark often, and Roark noticed that Loomis and Simpson were exchanging glances, silent, significant glances heavy with a secret he did not share. Loomis clucked his tongue once, looking at the clock, with a wet, bitter, mocking sound-Simpson sighed heavily and bent over his table, his old head bobbing softly up and down several times, in hopeless resignation.

At half past ten, Trager shuffled into the drafting room and stood on the threshold, seeing nobody.

"Mr. Darrow calling," he said to no one at all, the sounds of his voice like a string of precision dancers, all stiff and all alike, "says something awful's happened at the Huston Street job and he's going down there and for Mr. Cameron to meet him there at once. I guess one of you guys will have to go."

Darrow was the consulting structural engineer on the Huston Street job, and such a message from him went like a cold gust through the room. But it was the "I guess" that seemed to leap out of Trager's words, weighted with the secret meaning of why he guessed so and of why he expected them to know it. Loomis and Simpson looked helplessly at one another, and Loomis chuckled. Roark said brusquely, not knowing what had put anger into his voice: "Mr. Cameron said yesterday that he was going to inspect the Huston Street job. That's probably why he's late. Tell Darrow that he's on his way there now."

Loomis whistled through his teeth, and it seemed to Roark that the sound was laughing, bursting like steam from under tons of pressure of contempt. Trager would not move, would not look at Roark, but glanced slowly at the others. The others had nothing to say.

"Okay," said Trager, at last, to Roark, a flat, short sound concentrating within it a long sentence, saying that Trager would obey, because he didn't give a damn, even though he hadn't believed a single word of Roark's, because Roark knew better, or should. Trager turned and shuffled back to his telephone.

Half an hour later, he returned.

"Mr. Darrow calling from Huston Street," he said, his voice dull and even and sleepy, as if he were reporting on the amount of new pencils to be ordered, "he says to please send someone over and pour Mr. Cameron out of there, also to see what's to be done."

In the silence, Roark's T-square clattered loudly to the floor. The three men looked at him, and Loomis grinned viciously, triumphantly. But there was nothing to be seen on Roark's face. Roark turned to Trager slowly.

"I'm going there," said Roark.

"No, I guess you can't," mumbled Simpson. "I guess I gotta go."

"What can you do there?" Loomis snapped at Roark, more insolently than he had ever dared before. "What in hell do you know about construction? Let Simpson go."

"I'm going," said Roark.

He had his coat and cap on, he was out, before the others knew what to say; they knew also that they had better keep quiet.

Roark jumped into a cab, ordering: "Step on it! Fly, go through the lights!" He had in his pocket five dollars and forty-six cents, saved painstakingly from seven months of work. He hoped it would be enough to pay for the cab.

The Huston Street job was a twenty-story office building in a squalid block of lofts. It was the most important commission that Cameron had had for a long time. He had said nothing about it, but Roark knew that it was precious to the old master as a newborn child, as a first son. Once again, Cameron thought, he had a chance to show the indifferent city what he could do, how cheaply, how efficiently he could do it. Cameron, the bitter, the cynical, the hater of all men, had never lost the expectation of a miracle. He kept waiting, saying to himself always, "Next time," next time someone would see, next time the men who spent fortunes on grocery displays of marble vegetables and cursed the twisted, botched space within would realize the simplicity, the economy, the wisdom of his work, would come to him if he gave them but one more example. The example was granted to him again. And Cameron, who cursed all builders and owners, who laughed in their faces, prayed now that nothing would go wrong with the Huston Street job. Everything had gone wrong with it from the beginning.

The structure was owned by two brothers. It was the younger one who had insisted upon choosing Cameron as the architect, because he had seen Cameron's old buildings and a glimmer of sense had settled itself stubbornly within his brain; it was the older who had resented it, while giving in, had doubted the choice, and had selected as contractor for the building an old friend of his, who had little reputation but much contempt for architects. It had been a silent, vicious war from the beginning, with the contractor disregarding Cameron's orders, botching instructions, ignoring specifications, then running to the owners with complaints against ignorant architects whom he intended to teach a thing or two about building. The owners always took the side of the contractor, who was, they felt certain, protecting their interests against malignant strangers. There had been delays. There had been strikes among the building workers, due to unfair, planless, purposeless management. The delays cost money. It was not Cameron's fault, but there was no court before which he could prove it. The court that passed judgment upon him would be the spreading whispers: "Oh, yeah, Cameron. He starts with a budget of four hundred thousand and it's six hundred before the steel's up. Have you heard what that building of his down in Huston Street has cost?"

Roark thought of that as the cab whirled into Huston Street. Then he forgot it for a moment, forgot Cameron, forgot everything else. He was looking at a cage of steel rising in a gash between streaked, sooted brick walls. There it was, steel columns pointing at the sky, gray arches of floors mounting like even shelves, tangled in wires, in ropes and cables and grimy planks, with scaffoldings clinging to its empty flanks, gray overalls burrowing through its bowels, derricks like fountains of iron flung up from its veins. It was only a raw chaos of beams to those passing it in the street, but Roark thought that those on the street had the narrow, dissecting eyes of the X-ray marking nothing save bones, while he saw the whole body completed, the shape of living flesh, the walls, the angles, the windows. He could never look at the structure of a building, which he had seen born in lines and dots and squares upon a piece of paper, without feeling his throat tighten, his breath plunge to his stomach, and the silly desire, dim and real in his hand, to take his hat off. His fingers tightened on the edge of the cab window. When the car stopped, he got out supplely, he walked to the building swiftly, confidently, his head high and light as if he were coming home, as if the steel hulk were gathering assurance from him and he — from its naked beams. Then, he stopped.

Cameron stood leaning against the boards of the superintendent's shanty. Cameron was erect, with an air of self-possessed, utter, terrifying dignity. Only his eyes, dun, swimming, unfocused, were blinking at Roark with a heavy, offensive persistence.

"Who are you?" asked Cameron.

The voice, thick, blurred, spongy, was not one that Roark had ever heard.

Cameron lunged towards him, swayed, stretched an arm to hold on to the wall, stood uncertainly, the weight of his short, thick body sagging suspended to his arm, with five stubby fingers spread on the planks, like leeches sucking into wood.

"Hey, you," he said to Roark softly, waving a limp finger in his face, "I'll tell you something. I've got something to tell you. It's on account of the drill. You know the drill? It drills a little hole, so softly, it purrs like a bee in springtime, it drills right down through your throat, through your stomach, through the earth below, there's no bottom to that hole, no end, no stopping. There's a hole in the earth and it widens all the time and things whirl in it, spirals, widening. It hurts so very terribly... I know a fellow who's hurt so much that I hear him screaming all the time. But I don't know him very well... That's why I've got something to tell you. If you're looking at this thing here behind us, go and get a good laugh. It's wonderful what they've done to it. But walk carefully, there's spirals in the ground, widening... you see?..."

"Mr. Cameron," said Roark softly, "sit down." His strong hands closed over the old man's forearms, forcing him gently down upon a pile of planks. Cameron did not resist; he sat, looking up, muttering feebly: "That's funny... very funny... I know someone who looks just like you..."

Then Roark noticed the men who stood watching him curiously. Among them, he saw Darrow, a lanky, stooped, elderly giant with an impassive face; and the contractor's chief estimator, a muscular individual with his hands in his pockets, a pale, puffed face, a dab of mustache in the too wide space between his nose and mouth. He knew the contractor's estimator; Cameron had thrown him out of his office two weeks ago, concluding the last of his too frequent visits.

"What's happened here?" Roark asked.

"Oh, what the hell!" said the estimator. "Darrow's been calling your place all morning and then this shows up all of a sudden!" He jerked his thumb at Cameron.

"What were you calling about? Where's the trouble?"

"Well, Roark, I don't know if you can do anything about it..." Darrow began, but the estimator interrupted him.

"Aw, what the hell! We got no time to waste explaining to punk kids!"

Roark was looking at Darrow.

"Well?" Roark asked, and the question was a command.

"It's the concrete," said Darrow impassively. "The penthouse, the elevator machinery-room floor arches. It's running under test. It won't stand the load. I told the bastards not to pour it in this weather. But they went right ahead. Now it's set. And it's no good. What are you going to do about it?"

Roark stood, his head thrown back, looking at the gray shadow of the penthouse among the gray clouds far away. Then he turned to the estimator.

"Well?" Roark asked.

"Well, what?" the estimator snapped, and added, his voice whining: "Aw, we couldn't help it!"

"Talk fast," said Roark.

"Aw, what the hell! We were behind schedule and the boss was stepping on us and the old man's sniveling about all the dough this thing's costing him as it is, and so we figured we'd save time, what the hell, nothing's ever happened before, and anyway you know how concrete is, it's a killer, you never can tell how the damn stuff will set, it's not our fault, it can happen to anybody, we couldn't help it... And anyway, if your damn drawings weren't so damn fancy, we could've... A good architect'd know how to fix it up, even if..." His voice just petered out before the eyes that faced him.

“Well, what's the use of bellyaching now?" the estimator snapped as Roark said nothing- "I say, let it go. It'll stand all right. If Darrow here wasn't so damn finicky... And anyway, it's a fine time to be getting soused on us! What can you expect with the kind of fine architect we got around here?"

"Look, Roark," Darrow said quietly, "the work's held up. Someone's got to decide."

Behind them, Cameron burst into laughter suddenly, a high, monotonous, senseless, agonized laughter. He was still sitting there, on the planks, and he looked up, and his face seemed contorted, even though not a muscle of it moved.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, staring at Roark, his eyes stubbornly insistent and disturbed. "That's what I want to know, what you're doing here. You look funny. You look damn funny. I like your face, do you know that? Yes, I like it. Look, get out of here. You should be home. You should be home and in bed. You don't feel well. Look, don't worry about what you see here, about this..." He waved his arm vaguely at the building. "It's no use. It's absolutely no use. It doesn't matter. Also they have a drill in there. You don't see it, but that's because they're clever, they've hidden it. What do you want to get hurt for? It doesn't matter anyway."

"There!" said the estimator triumphantly. "See?"

Cameron sat, breathing heavily, wisps of steam trembling from his open mouth up into the frozen air, his stiff, cold fingers convulsed on the edge of a plank, and he looked up at the men.

"You think I'm drunk, don't you?" he asked, his eyes narrow and sly. "You damn fools! All of you, the red-headed one in particular! You think I'm drunk. That's where you're wrong. This is the time when I'm sober. The only time. And then I can have peace. Otherwise, I'm drunk always. Drunk all the time. Seeing things that don't exist. Me, I drink to stop the DT's. I drink to see clearly for once. To know that it doesn't matter... Nothing... Not at all... It's so easy. Drink to learn to hate things. I've never felt better in my life."

"Pretty, ain't it?" said the estimator.

"Shut up," said Darrow.

"God damn you all!" the estimator screamed suddenly. "We wouldn't have had any trouble if they'd hired a real architect! That's what happens when people get charitable and pick out a worthless bum who's never been any good, an old drunk who..."

Roark turned to him. Roark's arm went back and down, and then forward slowly, as if gathering the weight of air upon the crook of his elbow; it was only a flash, but it seemed to last for minutes, the movement stopped, the taut arm motionless in speed, and then his knuckles shot up, to the man's jaw, and the estimator was on the ground, his knees bent, upturned, his hand on his cheek. Roark stood, his legs spread apart, his arms hanging indifferently by his sides.

"Let's go up," said Roark, turning to Darrow. "Get the superintendent. I'll tell you what's to be done."

They went inside the structure, behind them Cameron staring stupidly ahead and the estimator scrambling slowly to his feet, dusting himself, muttering to no one: "Aw, what the hell, I didn' mean no harm, what the hell, you can't do that to me, you son of a bitch, I'll get you canned for this, I didn' mean no harm..."

The construction superintendent followed Roark and Darrow to the elevator, silently, reluctantly, glancing dubiously at Roark. The elevator — a few planks with a precarious railing — shot upward along the side of the building, swaying, shuddering, its cables creaking. The pavements dropped below them, the tops of automobiles descending softly down into an abyss till only flat little squares remained, flowing evenly through the thin channels of streets; the windows of houses streamed down, past them, and roofs flashed by, as flat breaks in the stream, as pedals pressing the houses down, out of the way of their flight. The superintendent picked his teeth thoughtfully; Darrow held on to the wooden railing; Roark stood, his hand closed about a cable, his legs apart, and looked at the structure, at the layers of floor arches flying past.

Twenty floors above the pavement, they stepped out onto a gray mat of concrete in the open cages that were to be the penthouse. "You can see," Darrow was saying, "it's worse than the tests showed."

Roark saw it at once, the odd gray color of the concrete, not the healthy, normal gray of the floors below; he could hear it with his eyes, the cry of warning, the alarm bell rising from the cold, hard, flat stretch of gray under his feet. It was as a disease written upon the skin of this thing he loved, this thing delivered suddenly to his care, and he stood over it as a doctor too sure of the symptoms when he had not wanted to be sure. He ran his fingers over the cold edge of a column encased in that treacherous gray; softly, absently, as if caressing the hand of a precious patient in sympathy, in understanding, in reassurance, to give comfort and to gain it in return.

"Well, Mr. Roark?" the superintendent asked. "What's going to happen?"

"Just this," said Roark. "When you get your elevator machinery up here, it will go straight through this, straight down to the basement."

"But, Jesus! What're we going to do now?"

Roark walked away from the two men, who stood watching him; he walked slowly, his eyes taking in every column, every beam, every foot of space, his steps ringing hard and hollow against the naked concrete. Then he stopped; he stood, his hands in his pockets, his collar raised, a tall figure against the empty gray sky beyond, one strand of red hair fluttering under his old cap. It was up to him, he thought, and each hour counted, each hour adding to that cost that stood as a monster somewhere, leering at them all; to do it over, to remove that concrete — it would mean two weeks of blasting to destroy one day's work, of blasting that might shake the building to its roots, if it could stand the strain at all. He would have to let the concrete remain, he thought, and then he would have to devise supports for these floors — when so little space was available, when every foot of it had been assigned to a purpose in the strict, meticulous economy of Cameron's plan. To devise it somehow, he thought, and to change nothing, not to alter one foot, one line of the building's silhouette, of its crown, of its proud profile, that had to be as Cameron had wished it to be, as each clear, powerful, delicate line rising from the ground demanded it to be. To decide, he thought, to take that into his hands, Cameron's work, to save it, to put his own thoughts irrevocably into steel and mortar — and he was not ready for that, he could not be ready. But it was only one part of him that thought this, dimly, not in words and logic, only as a twisted little ball of emotion in the pit of his stomach, a ball that would have broken into these words had he stopped to unravel it. He did not stop. The ball was only driving on the rest of him, and the rest of him was cold, clear, precise.

He stood without moving for a long time. Then he seized a piece of board from the ground and a pencil from his pocket. He stood, one foot resting on a pile of planks, the board on his knee, his hand flashing in swift, straight jerks, the outlines of steel supports rising on the wood. He sketched for a long time. The two men walked to him, stood watching his hand silently from behind his shoulder. Then, as the scheme became clear, it was the superintendent who spoke first, to gasp incredulously: "Jesus! It'll work! So that's what you're driving at!" Roark nodded and went on.

When he had finished, he handed the board to the superintendent, saying briefly, unnecessarily, because the crude, hurried lines on the board said everything: "Take the columns you have stored down below... put supports here... see?... and here... you clear the elevator shafts like this, see?... and here... clear the conduits... there's the general scheme."

"Jesus!" said the superintendent, frightened and delighted. "It's never been done that way before."

"You're going to do it."

"It'll hold," said Darrow, studying the sketch. "We may have to check some of these beams of yours... this business here, for instance... but it'll hold."

"The owners won't like it," said the superintendent, as a regretful afterthought.

"They'll take it and keep their damn mouths shut," said Roark. "Give me another board. Now look. Here's what you do on the two floors below." He went on drawing for a long time, throwing words over his shoulder once in a while.

"Yes," whispered the superintendent. "But... but what'll I say if someone asks if..."

"Say I gave the orders. Now keep these and get started." He turned to Darrow. "I'll draw up the plans and you'll have them this afternoon to check, and let him have them as soon

as possible." He turned to the superintendent. "Now go ahead."

"Yes, sir," said the superintendent. He said it respectfully.

They went down silently in the elevator. The superintendent was studying the drawings, Darrow was studying Roark, Roark was looking at the building.

They reached the ground below and Roark went back to Cameron. He took Cameron's elbows and helped him slowly to his feet. The estimator had disappeared.

"I'll take you home, Mr. Cameron," Roark said gently.

"Huh?" muttered Cameron. "Yes... oh, yes..." He nodded vaguely, in assent to nothing comprehensible.

Roark led him away. Then Cameron shook off the hands holding him, tottered and turned around. He stood, looking up at the steel skeleton, his head thrown back. He flung his arms out wide, and stood still, only his fingers moving weakly, uselessly, as if reaching for something. His lips moved; he wanted to speak; he said nothing.

"Look..." he whispered at last. "Look..." His voice was soft, choked, pleading, pleading desperately for the words he could not find. "Look..." He had so much to say. "Look..." he muttered hopelessly.

When Roark took his arm again, he did not resist. Roark led him to a cab and they drove to Cameron's home. Roark knew Cameron's address, but had never been inside his one stuffy, unkempt furnished room that bore on its walls, as its single distinction, framed photographs of his buildings. The bed stood untouched, unused the night before. Cameron had followed docilely up the stairs. But the sight of his room seemed to awaken something in his brain. He jerked loose suddenly; he whirled upon Roark, and his face was white with rage.

"What are you doing here?" he screamed, choking, his voice gulping in his throat. "What are you following me for? I hate you, whoever you are. I know what's the matter with me. It's because I can't bear the sight of you. There you stand reproaching me!"

"I don't," whispered Roark.

"God damn you! That's what's been following me. You're the one who's making me miserable. Everything else's all right, but you're the one who's putting me through hell. You're out to kill me, you..." And then there followed a torrent of such blasphemy as Roark had never heard on any waterfront, in any construction gang. Roark stood silently, waiting.

"Get out!" roared Cameron, lurching toward him. "Get out of here! Get out of my sight! Get out!"

Roark did not move. Cameron raised his hand and struck him across the mouth.

Roark fell back against a bedstand, but caught his balance, his feet steady, his body huddled against the stand, his hands behind him, pressed to its sides. He looked at Cameron. The sound of the blow had knocked Cameron into a sudden, lucid, sober pause of consciousness. He stared at Roark, his mouth half-open, his eyes dull, blank, frightened, but focused.

"Howard..." he muttered- "Howard, what are you doing here?"

His hand went across his wet forehead, trying vainly to remember.

"Howard, what was it? What happened?"

"Nothing, Mr. Cameron," Roark whispered, his handkerchief hidden in his hand, pressed to his mouth, swiftly wiping off the blood. "Nothing."

"Something's happened. Are you all right, Howard?"

"I'm all right, Mr. Cameron. But you'd better go to bed. I'll help you."

The old man did not resist, his legs giving way under him, his eyes empty, while Roark undressed him and pulled the blanket over him.

"Howard," he whispered, his face white on the pillow, his eyes closed, "I never wanted you to see it. But now you've seen it. Now you know."

"Try to sleep, Mr. Cameron."

"An honor..." Cameron whispered, without opening his eyes, "an honor that I could not have deserved... Who said that?"

"Go to sleep, Mr. Cameron. You'll be all right tomorrow."

"You hate me now," said Cameron, raising his head, looking at Roark, a soft, lost, unexpecting smile in his eyes, "don't you?"

"No," said Roark. "But I hate everyone else in the world."

Cameron's head fell back on the pillow. He lay still, his hands small, drawn, and yellow on the white bed-cloth. Then he was asleep.

There was no one to call. Roark asked the sleepy, indifferent landlady to look after Cameron, and returned to the office.

He went straight to his table, noticing no one. He pulled a sheet of paper forward and went to work silently.

"Well?" asked Loomis. "What happened down there?" asked Simpson.

"Penthouse floor arches," Roark answered without raising his head.

"Jesus!" gasped Simpson. "Now what?"

"It will be all right," said Roark. "You'll take these down to Huston Street when I finish, Loomis."

"Yes," said Loomis, his mouth hanging open.

That afternoon, Trager came into the drafting room, his glance directed, fixed upon a definite object.

"There's a Mr. Mead outside," he said. "He had an appointment with Mr. Cameron about that hotel down in Connecticut. What shall I tell him, Mr. Roark?"

Roark jerked his thumb at the door of Cameron's office.

"Send him in," said Roark. "I'll see him."

On a day when the [Heller] house was nearing completion, Roark noticed, driving

towards it one morning, an old, hunched figure standing at the foot of the hill, alone on the rocky shore, ignored by the cars flying past and by the noisy activity of the workers above. He knew the broad, bent back of that figure, but what it appeared to be was incredible. He stopped his car with a violent screech of brakes, and leaped out, and ran forward, frightened. He saw the heavy cane and the two hands leaning agonizingly upon its handle, the old body braced in supreme effort against one steady shaft, grinding its tip into the earth.

Roark stood before him and opened his mouth and said nothing.

"Well?" asked Cameron. "What are you staring at?"

Roark couldn't answer.

"Now you're not going to say anything," Cameron snapped. "Why the hell did you have to come here today? I didn't want you to know."

"How... how could Miss Cameron let you..."

"She didn't let me," said Cameron triumphantly. "I escaped." His eyes twinkled slyly, with the boasting of a boy playing hookey. "I just sneaked out of the house when she went to church. I can hire taxis and get on trains just like anybody else. I'll slap your face if you go on standing there with that stupid look proclaiming to the world that it's so unusual for me to crawl out of the grave. Really, you know, you're more of a fool than I thought you were. You should have expected me here someday." The cane staggered and he caught at Roark's arm for support. He added softly: "Do you know what Victor Hugo said? Victor Hugo said that there may be indifferent fathers, but there can't be indifferent grandfathers. Help me up the hill."

"No!" said Roark. "You can't!"

"I said help me up the hill," Cameron pronounced slowly, icily, with the tone of addressing an insolent draftsman.

Roark had to obey. His hands closed about Cameron's elbows, and he pulled the old body gently, tightly against his own, and they went forward slowly. Cameron's feet stepped with long, deliberate precision, each step — a purpose begun and carried on and completed consciously, his mind concentrated upon each step. The cane left a long, zigzagging string of dots stamped on the earth behind them. Cameron barely felt the pressure of Roark's hands on his elbows, but the hands led him, held him in tight safety, as if some fluid energy of motion flowed from these hands through his body, as if Cameron were carried forward not by his feet, but by Roark's hands. They stopped frequently, upon each ledge they reached, and stood silently, Cameron trying to hide the gasps of his breath, and looked up. Then they went on.

When they reached the top, they sat down on the steps of the entrance and rested for a long time. Then they walked slowly through all the rooms of the house. The workers looked with indifferent curiosity upon the old cripple whom it pleased the architect to drag through the building. No one knew Cameron. Cameron made no comments, beyond snapping briefly, once in a while: "That's a bum job of plastering here. Don't let them get away with it. Have it done over... Watch out for air currents in this hall. Adjust the ventilation... You'll want another electric outlet on these stairs..." Then they came out again and Cameron stood, without help, leaning on his cane, his back to the house, looking over the vast spread of the countryside for a long time. When he turned his head to Roark, he said nothing, but nodded slowly in a great, silent affirmation.

After a while, Roark said: "I'll drive you back now."

"No," said Cameron. "I'll stay here till evening — while I'm here. You go ahead with whatever you have to do. I'll just sit here. Don't make such a fuss about me."

Roark brought the leather seats from his car, and spread them on the ground in the shade of a tree, and helped Cameron to settle down comfortably upon them. Then he went back to his work in the house. Cameron sat looking at the sea and at the walls before him. His cane, stretched limply forward between his hands, tapped softly against a stone, once in a while, two brief little thumps, then two more a long time later, as if punctuating the course of his thoughts.

At noon, they shared the box lunch Roark had brought with him; they ate, Roark sitting on the ground beside him, and they spoke of the various qualities of Connecticut granite as compared with the stone from other quarries. And later, when Roark had nothing further to do for the day, he stretched down beside Cameron, and they sat through many hours, unconscious of their long silences and of the few sentences they spoke, vague, unfinished, half-answered sentences, unconscious of the time that passed and of the necessity for any aim in sitting there.

Long after the workers had left, when the sea became a soft purple and the windows of the empty, silent house flared up in unmoving yellow fire, Roark said: "We're going now," and Cameron nodded silently.

When they had reached the car below, Cameron leaned suddenly against its door, his face white from an exhaustion he could not hide. He pushed Roark's hands away. "In a moment..." he whispered humbly. "All right in a moment..." Then he raised his head and said: "Okay." Roark helped him into the car.

They had driven for half a mile, before Roark asked: "Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm not," said Cameron. "To hell with that. I'll have to go back to the wheelchair for a month, I suppose... Keep still. You know better than to regret it."

The Simplest Thing in the World

This 1940 story, with Ayn Rand's prefatory note, is reprinted from The Romantic Manifesto.

She wrote it about a creative writer, while she was deep in the writing of The Fountainhead. By that time, The Fountainhead had been rejected by some twelve publishers.

R.E.R.

(This story was written in 1940. It did not appear in print until the November 1967 issue of THE OBJECTTVIST, where it was published in its original form, as written.

The story illustrates the nature of the creative process— the way in which an artist's sense of life directs the integrating functions of his subconscious and controls his creative imagination. — A. R.)

Henry Dorn sat at his desk and looked at a sheet of blank paper. Through a feeling of numb panic, he said to himself: this is going to be the easiest thing you've ever done.

Just be stupid, he said to himself. That's all. Just relax and be as stupid as you can be. Easy, isn't it? What are you scared of, you damn fool? You don't think you can be stupid, is that it? You're conceited, he said to himself angrily. That's the whole trouble with you. You're conceited as hell. So you can't be stupid, can you? You're being stupid right now. You've been stupid about this thing all your life. Why can't you be stupid on order?

I'll start in a minute, he said. Just one minute more and then I'll start. I will, this time. I'll just rest for a minute, that's all right, isn't it? I'm very tired. You've done nothing today, he said. You've done nothing for months. What are you tired of? That's why I'm tired — because I've done nothing. I wish I could... I'd give anything if I could again... Stop that. Stop it quick. That's the one thing you mustn't think about. You're to start in a minute and you were almost ready. You won't be ready if you think of that.

Don't look at it. Don't look at it. Don't look at... He had turned. He was looking at a thick book in a ragged blue jacket, lying on a shelf, under old magazines. He could see, on its spine, the white letters merging with the faded blue: Triumph by Henry Dorn.

He got up and pushed the magazines down to hide the book. It's better if you don't see it while you're doing it, he said. No. It's better if it doesn't see you doing it. You're a sentimental fool, he said.

It was not a good book. How do you know it was a good book? No, that won't work. All right, it was a good book. It's a great book. There's nothing you can do about that. It would be much easier if you could. It would be much easier if you could make yourself believe that it was a lousy book and that it had deserved what had happened to it. Then you could look people straight in the face and write a better one. But you didn't believe it. And you had tried very hard to believe that. But you didn't.

All right, he said. Drop that. You've gone over that, over and over again, for two years. So drop it. Not now... It wasn't the bad reviews that I minded. It was the good ones. Particularly the one by Fleurette Lumm who said it was the best book she'd ever read — because it had such a touching love story.

He had not even known that there was a love story in his book, and he had not known that what there was of it was touching. And the things that were there, in his book, the things he had spent five years thinking of and writing, writing as carefully, as scrupulously, as delicately as he knew how — these things Fleurette Lumm had not mentioned at all. At first, after he had read the reviews, he had thought that these things were not in his book at all; he had only imagined they were; or else the printer had left them out — only the book seemed very thick, and if the printer had left them out, what filled all those pages? And it wasn't possible that he had not written the book in English, and it wasn't possible that so many bright people couldn't read English, and it wasn't possible that he was insane. So he read his book over again, very carefully, and he was happy when he found a bad sentence in it, or a muddled paragraph, or a thought that did not seem clear; he said, they're right, it isn't there, it isn't clear at all, it was perfectly fair of them to miss it and the world is a human place to live in. But after he had read all of his book, to the end, he knew that it was there, that it was clear and beautiful and very important, that he could not have done it any better — and that he'll never understand the answer. That he had better not try to understand it, if he wished to remain alive.

All right, he said. That's about enough now, isn't it? You've been at it longer than a minute. And you said you would start.

The door was open and he looked into the bedroom. Kitty sat there at a table, playing solitaire. Her face looked as if she were very successful at making it look as if everything were all right. She had a lovely mouth. You could always tell things about people by their mouth. Hers looked as if she wanted to smile at the world, and if she didn't it was her own fault, and she really would in a moment, because she was all right and so was the world. In the lamplight her neck looked white and very thin, bent attentively over the cards. It didn't cost any money to play solitaire. He heard the cards thumping down gently, and the steam crackling in the pipe in the corner.

The doorbell rang, and Kitty came in quickly to open the door, not looking at him, her body tight and purposeful under the childish, wide-skirted, print dress, a very lovely dress, only it had been bought two years ago and for summer wear. He could have opened the door, but he knew why she wanted to open it.

He stood, his feet planted wide apart, his stomach drawn, not looking at the door, listening. He heard a voice and then he heard Kitty saying: "No, I'm sorry, but we really don't need an Electrolux." Kitty's voice was almost a song of release; as if she were making an effort not to sound too foolish; as if she loved the Electrolux man and wished she could ask him in to visit He knew why Kitty's voice sounded like that. She had thought it was the landlord.

Kitty closed the door, and looked at him, crossing the room, and smiled as if she were apologizing — humbly and happily — for her existence, and said: "I don't want to interrupt you, dear," and went back to her solitaire.

All you have to do, he said to himself, is think of Fleurette Lumm and try to imagine what she likes. Just imagine that and then write it down. That's all there is to it. And you'll have a good commercial story that will sell immediately and make you a lot of money. It's the simplest thing in the world.

You can't be the only one who's right and everybody else wrong, he said. Everybody's told you that that's what you must do. You've asked for a job and nobody would give you one. Nobody would help you find one. Nobody had even seemed interested or serious about it. They said, a brilliant young man like you! Look at Paul Pattison, they said. Eighty thousand a year and not half your brain. But Paul knows what the public likes to read and gives it to them. If you'd just stop being so stubborn, they said. You don't have to be intellectual all the time. Why not be practical for a while, and then, after you've made your first fifty thousand dollars, you can sit back and indulge yourself in some more high literature which will never sell. They said, why waste your time on a job? What can you do? You'll be lucky if you get twenty-five a week. It's foolish, when you've got a great talent for words, you know you have, if you'd only be sensible about it. It ought to be easy for you. If you can write fancy, difficult stuff like that, it ought to be a cinch to toss off a popular serial or two. Any fool can do it. They said, stop dramatizing yourself. Do you enjoy being a martyr? They said, look at your wife. They said, if Paul Pattison can do it, why can't you?

Think of Fleurette Lumm, he said to himself, sitting down at his desk. You imagine that you can't understand her, but you can, if you want to. Don't try to be so complicated. Be simple. She's simple to understand. That's it. Be simple about everything. Just write a simple story. The simplest, most unimportant story you can imagine. For God's sake, can't you think of anything that's not important, not important at all, not of the slightest possible importance? Can't you? Are you as good as that, you conceited fool? Do you really think you're as good as that? That you can't do anything unless it's great, profound, important? Do you have to be a world-saver all the time? Do you have to be a damn Joan d'Arc?

Stop kidding yourself, he said. You can. You're no better than anyone else. He chuckled. That's the kind of rotter you are. People tell themselves they're no worse than anyone else when they need courage. You tell yourself you're no better. I wish you'd tell me where you got that infernal conceit of yours. That's all it is. Not any great talent, not any brilliant mind — just conceit. You're not a noble martyr to your art. You're an inflated egotist — and you're getting just what you deserve.

Good, are you? What makes you think you're good? What right have you to hate what you're going to do? You haven't written anything for months. You couldn't. You can't write any more. You never will again. And if you can't write what you want to write — what business have you to despise the things people want you to write? That's all you're good for anyway, not for any great epics with immortal messages, and you ought to be damn glad to try and do it, not sit here like a convict in a death cell waiting for his picture to be taken for the front pages.

Now that's better. I think you have the right spirit now. Now you can start.

How does one start those things?... Well, let's see... It must be a simple, human story. Try to think of something human... How does one make one's mind work? How does one invent a story? How can people ever be writers? Come on, you've written before. How did you start then? No, you can't think of that. Not of that. If you do — you'll go completely blank again, or worse. Think that you've never written before. It's a new start. You're turning over a new leaf. There! That was good. If you can think in lousy bromides like that, you'll do it. You're beginning to get it...

Think of something human... Oh, come on, think hard... Well, try it this way: think of the word "human," think of what it means — you'll get an idea somewhere... Human... What's the most human thing there is? What's the quality that all the people you know have got, the outstanding quality in all of them? Their motive power? Fear. Not fear of anyone in particular, just fear. Just a great, blind force without object. Malicious fear. The kind that makes them want to see you suffer. Because they know that they, too, will have to suffer and it makes it easier, to know that you do also. The kind that makes them want to see you being small and funny and smutty. Small people are safe. It's not really fear, it's more than that. Like Mr. Crawford, for instance, who's a lawyer and who's glad when a client of his loses a suit. He's glad, even though he loses money on it; even though it hurts his reputation. He's glad, and he doesn't even know that he's glad. God, what a story there is in Mr. Crawford! If you could put him down on paper as he is, and explain just why he is like that, and...

Yeah, he said to himself. In three volumes which no one would ever publish, because they'd say it was not true and call me a hater of humanity. Stop it. Stop it fast. That's not at all what they mean when they say a story is human. But it's human. But it's not what they mean. What do they mean? You'll never know. Oh yes, you do. You know it. You know it very well — without knowing. Oh, stop this!...

Why must you always know the meaning of everything? There's your first mistake — right there. Do it without thinking. It mustn't have any meaning. It must be written as if you'd never tried to find any meaning in anything, not ever in your life. It must sound as if that's the kind of person you are. Why do people resent people who look for a meaning? What's the real reason that...

STOP IT!...

All right. Let's try to go at it in a different way entirely. Don't start with an abstraction. Start with something definite. Anything. Think of something simple, obvious and bad. So bad that you won't care, one way or the other. Say the first thing you can think of.

For instance, a story about a middle-aged millionaire who tries to seduce a poor young working girl. That's good. That's very good. Now go on with it. Quick. Don't think. Go on with it.

Well, he's a man of about fifty. He's made a fortune, unscrupulously, because he's ruthless. She's only twenty-two, and very beautiful, and very sweet, and she works in the five-and-ten. Yes, in the five-and-ten. And he owns it. That's what he is — a big tycoon who owns a whole slew of five-and-ten's. This is good.

One day he comes to this particular store, and he sees this girl and he falls in love with her. Why would he fall in love with her? Well, he's lonely. He's very terribly lonely. He hasn't got a friend in the world. People don't like him. People never like a man who's made a success of himself. Also, he's ruthless. You can't make a success of yourself unless you hold onto your one goal and drop everything else. When you have a great devotion to a goal — people call you ruthless. And when you work harder than anyone else, when you work like a freight engine while others take it easy, and so you beat them at it — people call you unscrupulous. That's human also.

You don't work like that just to make money. It's something else. It's a great, driving energy — a creative energy? — no, it's the principle of creation itself. It's what makes everything in the world. Dams and skyscrapers and transatlantic cables. Everything we've got. It comes from men like that. When he started the shipyards — oh, he's a five-and-ten tycoon — no, he isn't, to hell with the five-and-ten! — when he started the shipyards that he made his fortune from, there was nothing there but a few shacks and a lot of clam shells. He made the town, he made the harbor, he gave jobs to hundreds of people, they'd still be digging for clams if he hadn't come along. And now they hate him. And he's not bitter

about it. He's accepted that long ago. He just doesn't understand. Now he's fifty years old, and circumstances have forced him to retire. He's got millions — and he's the most miserable man in the world. Because he wants to work — not to make money, just to work, just to fight and take chances — because that great energy cannot be kept still.

Now when he meets the girl — what girl? — oh, the one in the five-and-ten... Oh, to hell with her! What do you need her for? He's married long ago — and that's not the story at all. What he meets is a poor, struggling young man. And he envies this boy — because the boy's great struggle is still ahead of him. But this boy — now that's the point — this boy doesn't want to struggle at all. He's a nice, able, likeable kid, but he has no real, driving desire for anything. He's been adequate at several different jobs and he's dropped them all. There's no passion to him, no goal. What he wants above all is security. He doesn't care what he does or how or who tells him to do it. He's never created anything. He's given nothing to the world and he never will. But he wants security from the world. And he's liked by everybody. And he has everybody's sympathy. And there they are — the two men. Which one is right? Which one is good? Which one's got the truth? What happens when life brings them face to face?

Oh, what a story! Don't you see? It's not just the two of them. It's more, much more. It's the whole tragedy of the world today. It's our greatest problem. It's the most important…

Oh, God!

Do you think you can? Do you think you'll get away with it maybe, if you're very clever, if you disguise it, so they'll think it's just a story about an old man, nothing very serious, I don't mind if they miss it, I hope they miss it, let them think they're reading trash, if they'll only let me write it. I don't have to stress it, I don't have to have much of it, of what's good, I can hide it, I can apologize for it with a lot of human stuff about boats and women and swimming pools. They won't know. They'll let me.

No, he said, they won't. Don't fool yourself. They're as good at it as you are. They know their kind of story just like you do yours. They might not even be able to explain it, what it is or where, but they'll know. They always know what's theirs and what isn't. Besides, it's a controversial issue. The leftists won't like it. It will antagonize a lot of people. What do you want a controversial issue for — in a popular magazine story?

No, go back to the beginning, where he's a five-and-ten tycoon... No. I can't. I can't waste it. I've got to use that story. I'll write it. But not now. I'll write it after I've written this one commercial piece. That will be the first thing I'll write after I have money. That's worth waiting for.

Now start all over again. On something else. Come on, it isn't so bad now, is it? You see, it wasn't difficult at all, thinking. It came by itself. Just start on something else.

Get an interesting beginning, something good and startling, even if you don't know what it's all about and where to go from there. Suppose you open with a young girl who lives on a rooftop, in one of those storerooms above a loft-building, and she's sitting there on the roof, all alone, it's a beautiful summer evening, and suddenly there's a shot and a window in the next building cracks open, glass flying all over the place, and a man jumps out of the window onto her roof-There! You can't possibly go wrong on that. It's so bad that it's sure to be right.

Well... Why would a girl live in a loft-building? Because it's cheap. No, the Y.W.C.A. would be cheaper. Or sharing a furnished room with a girlfriend. That's what a girl would do. No, not this girl. She can't get along with people. She doesn't know why. But she can't. So she'd rather be alone. She's been very much alone all her life. She works in a huge, busy, noisy, stupid office. She likes her rooftop because when she's there alone at night, she has the whole city to herself, and she sees it, not as it is, but as it could have been. As it should have been. That's her trouble — always wanting things to be what they should be, and never are. She looks at the city and she thinks of what's going on in the penthouses, little islands of light in the sky, and she thinks of great, mysterious, breath-stopping things, not of cocktail parties, and drunks in bathrooms, and kept women with dogs.

And the building next door — it's a smart hotel, and there's this one large window right over her roof, and the window is of frosted glass, because the view is so ugly. She can't see anything in that window — only the silhouettes of people against the light. Only the shadows. And she sees this one man there — he's tall and slender and he holds his shoulders as if he were giving orders to the whole world. And he moves as if that were a light and easy job for him to do. And she falls in love with him. With his shadow. She's never seen him and she doesn't want to. She doesn't know anything about him and she never tries to learn. She doesn't care. It's not what he is. It's what she thinks of him as being. It's a love without future, without hope or the need of hope, a love great enough to find happiness in nothing but its own greatness, unreal, inexpressible, undemanding — and more real than anything around her. And...

Henry Dorn sat at his desk, seeing what men cannot see except when they do not know they are seeing it, seeing his own thoughts in a way of sight brighter than any perception of the things around him, seeing them, not pushing them forward, but seeing them as a detached observer without control of their shape, each thought a corner, and a bright astonishment meeting him behind each corner, not creating anything, but being carried along, not helping and not resisting, through minutes of a feeling like a payment for all the agony he would ever bear, a feeling continuing only while you do not know that you feel it...

And then, that evening, she is sitting alone on the roof, and there's a shot, and that window is shattered, and that man leaps out onto her roof. She sees him for the first time — and this is the miracle: for once in her life, he is what she had wanted him to be, he looks as she had wanted him to look. But he has just committed a murder. I suppose it

will have to be some kind of justifiable murder... No! No! No! It's not a justifiable murder at all. We don't even know what it is — and she doesn't know. But here is the dream, the impossible, the ideal — against the laws of the whole world. Her own truth — against all mankind. She has to...

Oh, stop it! Stop it! Stop it!

Well...?

Pull yourself together, man. Pull yourself together...

Well? For whom is it you're writing that story? For the Women's Kitchen Friend?

No, you're not tired. You're all right. It's all right. You'll write this story later. You'll write it after you have money. It's all right. It won't be taken away from you. Now sit quiet. Count ten.

No! I tell you, you can. You can. You haven't tried hard enough. You let it get away with you. You begin to think. Can't you think without thinking?

Listen, can't you understand a different way of doing it? Don't think of the fantastic, don't think of the unusual, don't think of the opposite of what anyone else'd want to think, but go after the obvious, the easy. Easy — for whom? Come on now. It's this: it's because you ask yourself "what if...?" That starts the whole trouble. "What if it's not what it seems to be at all... Wouldn't it be interesting if..." That's what you do, and you mustn't. You mustn't think of what would be interesting. But how can I do anything if I know it isn't interesting? But it will be — to them. That's just why it will be to them — because it isn't to you. That's the whole secret. But then how do I know what, or where, or why?

Listen, can't you stop it for a little while? Can't you turn it off — that brain of yours? Can't you make it work without letting it work? Can't you be stupid? Can't you be consciously, deliberately, cold-bloodedly stupid? Can't that be done in some way? Everybody is stupid about some things, the best of us and the brightest. Everybody has blind spots, they say. Can't you make it be this?

Dear God, let me be stupid! Let me be dishonest! Let me be contemptible! Just once. Because I must.

Don't you see? It's a matter of one reversal. Just make one single reversal: instead of believing that one must try to be intelligent, different, honest, challenging, that one must do the best possible to the best of one's ability and then stretch it some more to do still better — believe that one must be dull, stale, sweet, dishonest and safe. That's all. Is that the way other people do it? No, I don't think so. They'd end up in an insane asylum in six months. Then what is it? I don't know. It isn't that — but it works out like that. Maybe if we were told from the beginning to reverse it... But we aren't. But some of us get wise to it early — and then they're all right. But why should it be like that? Why should we... Drop it. You're not settling world problems. You're writing a commercial story-All right. Quick and cold now. Hold yourself tight and don't let yourself like the story-Above all, don't let yourself like it.

Let's make it a detective story. A murder mystery. You can't possibly have a murder mystery with any serious meaning. Come on. Quick, cold and simple.

There must be two villains in a mystery story: the victim and the murderer — so nobody would feel too sorry for either of them. That's the way it's always done. Well, you can have some leeway on the victim, but the murderer's got to be a villain... Now the murderer must have a motive. It must be a contemptible motive... Let's see... I've got it: the murderer is a professional blackmailer who's holding a lot of people in his clutches, and the victim is the man who's about to expose him, so the blackmailer kills this man. That's as low a motive as you could imagine. There's no excuse for that... Or is there? What if... Wouldn't it be interesting if you could prove that the murderer was justified?

What if all those people he blackmails are utter lice? The kind that do horrible things, but just manage to remain within the law, so there's no way of defending yourself against them. And this man chooses deliberately to become a crusading blackmailer. He gets things on all those people and he forces them to do justice. A lot of men make careers for themselves by knowing where some body or other is buried. Well, this man goes out after such "bodies," only he doesn't use them for personal advancement, he uses them to undo the harm these people are doing. He's a Robin Hood of blackmail. He gets them in the only way they can be gotten. For instance, one of them is a corrupt politician, and the hero — no, the murderer — no, the hero gets the dope on him and forces him to vote right on a certain measure. Another one is a big Hollywood producer who's ruined a lot of lives — and the hero makes him give a talented actress a break without forcing her to become his mistress. Another one is a crooked businessman — and the hero forces him to play straight. And when the worst one of the lot — what's the worst one of the lot? a hypocritical reformer, I think — no, that's dangerous to touch, too controversial — oh, what the hell! — when this reformer traps the hero and is about to expose him, the hero kills him. Why shouldn't he? And the interesting thing about the story is that all those people will be presented just as they appear in real life. Nice people, pillars of society, liked, admired and respected. And the hero is just a hard, lonely kind of outcast.

Oh, what a story! Prove that! Prove what some of our popular people are really like! Blow the lid off society! Show it for what it's worth! Prove that the lone wolf is not always a wolf! Prove honesty and courage and strength and dedication! Prove it through a blackmailer and a murderer! Have a story with a murderer for a hero and let him get away with it! A great story! An important story which...

Henry Dorn sat very still, his hands folded in his lap, hunched, seeing nothing, thinking of nothing.

Then he pushed the sheet of blank paper aside and reached for the Times' "Help Wanted" ads.