The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand

class. I guess he’ll take Shlinker.”
    “No!” he gulped furiously. “Not Shlinker!”
    “Yes,” she said sweetly. “Shlinker.”
    “But...”
    “But why should you care what people will say? All you have to do is please yourself.”
    “And you think that Francon ...”
    “Why should I think of Mr. Francon? It’s nothing to me.”
    “Mother, you want me to take the job with Francon?”
    “I don’t want anything, Petey. You’re the boss.”
    He wondered whether he really liked his mother. But she was his mother and this fact was recognized by everybody as meaning automatically that he loved her, and so he took for granted that whatever he felt for her was love. He did not know whether there was any reason why he should respect her judgment. She was his mother; this was supposed to take the place of reasons.
    “Yes, of course, Mother.... But ... Yes, I know, but ... Howard?”
    It was a plea for help. Roark was there, on a davenport in the corner, half lying, sprawled limply like a kitten. It had often astonished Keating; he had seen Roark moving with the soundless tension, the control, the precision of a cat; he had seen him relaxed, like a cat, in shapeless ease, as if his body held no single solid bone. Roark glanced up at him. He said:
    “Peter, you know how I feel about either one of your opportunities. Take your choice of the lesser evil. What will you learn at the Beaux-Arts? Only more Renaissance palaces and operetta settings. They’ll kill everything you might have in you. You do good work, once in a while, when somebody lets you. If you really want to learn, go to work. Francon is a bastard and a fool, but you will be building. It will prepare you for going on your own that much sooner.”
    “Even Mr. Roark can talk sense sometimes,” said Mrs. Keating, “even if he does talk like a truck driver.”
    “Do you really think that I do good work?” Keating looked at him, as if his eyes still held the reflection of that one sentence—and nothing else mattered.
    “Occasionally,” said Roark. “Not often.”
    “Now that it’s all settled ...” began Mrs. Keating.
    “I ... I’ll have to think it over, Mother.”
    “Now that it’s all settled, how about the hot chocolate? I’ll have it out to you in a jiffy!”
    She smiled at her son, an innocent smile that declared her obedience and gratitude, and she rustled out of the room.
    Keating paced nervously, stopped, lighted a cigarette, stood spitting the smoke out in short jerks, then looked at Roark.
    “What are you going to do now, Howard?”
    “I?”
     
    “Very thoughtless of me, I know, going on like that about myself. Mother means well, but she drives me crazy.... Well, to hell with that. What are you going to do?”
    “I’m going to New York.”
    “Oh, swell. To get a job?”
    “To get a job.”
    “In... in architecture?”
    “In architecture, Peter.”
    “That’s grand. I’m glad. Got any definite prospects?”
    “I’m going to work for Henry Cameron.”
    “Oh, no, Howard!”
    Roark smiled slowly, the corners of his mouth sharp, and said nothing.
    “Oh, no, Howard!”
    “Yes.”
    “But he’s nothing, nobody any more! Oh, I know he has a name, but he’s done for! He never gets any important buildings, hasn’t had any for years! They say he’s got a dump for an office. What kind of future will you get out of him? What will you learn?”
    “Not much. Only how to build.”
    “For God’s sake, you can’t go on like that, deliberately ruining yourself! I thought ... well, yes, I thought you’d learned something today!”
    “I have.”
    “Look, Howard, if it’s because you think that no one else will have you now, no one better, why, I’ll help you. I’ll work old Francon and I’ll get connections and...”
    “Thank you, Peter. But it won’t be necessary. It’s settled.”
    “What did he say?”
    “Who?”
    “Cameron.”
    “I’ve never met him.”
    Then a horn screamed outside. Keating remembered,