The leader of the profession--on a mean scale, there was no grand scale left inanything--was Gordon L. Prescott, Chairman of the Council of American Builders;Gordon L. Prescott who lectured on the transcendental pragmatism of architectureand social planning, who put his feet on tables in drawing rooms, attendedformal dinners in knickerbockers and criticized the soup aloud. Society peoplesaid they liked an architect who was a liberal. The A.G.A. still existed, instiff, hurt dignity, but people referred to it as the Old Folks’ Home. TheCouncil of American Builders ruled the profession and talked about a closedshop, though no one had yet devised a way of achieving that. Whenever anarchitect’s name appeared in Ellsworth Toohey’s column, it was always that ofAugustus Webb. At thirty-nine, Keating heard himself described as old-fashioned.He had given up trying to understand. He knew dimly that the explanation of thechange swallowing the world was of a nature he preferred not to know. In hisyouth he had felt an amicable contempt for the works of Guy Francon or RalstonHolcombe, and emulating them had seemed no more than innocent quackery. But heknew that Gordon L. Prescott and Gus Webb represented so impertinent, so viciousa fraud that to suspend the evidence of his eyes was beyond his elasticcapacity. He had believed that people found greatness in Holcombe and there hadbeen a reasonable satisfaction in borrowing his borrowed greatness. He knew thatno one saw anything whatever in Prescott. He felt something dark and leering inthe manner with which people spoke of Prescott’s genius; as if they were notdoing homage to Prescott, but spitting upon genius. For once, Keating could notfollow people; it was too clear, even to him, that public favor had ceased beinga recognition of merit, that it had become almost a brand of shame
