"I knew you'd like it. Forgive the inadequacy. We're stuck for words tonight."
She walked to the davenport and sat down; she let her back press against the cushions; it helped to sit straight. She kept her eyes on Wynand. He stood before her, leaning on the mantelpiece, half turned away, looking at the drawing. She could not escape that drawing; Wynand's face was like a mirror of it.
"You've seen him, Gail?"
"Whom?"
"The architect."
"Of course I've seen him. Not an hour ago."
"When did you first meet him?"
"Last month."
"You knew him all this time? ... Every evening ... when you came home ... at the dinner table ... "
"You mean, why didn't I tell you? I wanted to have the sketch to show you. I saw the house like this, but I couldn't explain it. I didn't think anyone would ever understand what I wanted and design it. He did."
"Who?"
"Howard Roark."
She had wanted to hear the name pronounced by Gail Wynand.
"How did you happen to choose him, Gail?"
"I looked all over the country. Every building I liked had been done by him."
She nodded slowly.
"Dominique, I take it for granted you don't care about it any more, but I know that I picked the one architect you spent all your time denouncing when you were on the Banner."
"You read that?"
"I read it. You had an odd way of doing it. It was obvious that you admired his work and hated him personally. But you defended him at the Stoddard trial."
"Yes."
"You even worked for him once. That statue, Dominique, it was made for his temple."
"Yes."
"It's strange. You lost your job on the Banner for defending him. I didn't know it when I chose him. I didn't know about that trial. I had forgotten his name. Dominique, in a way, it's he who gave you to me. That statue — from his temple. And now he's going to give me this house. Dominique, why did you hate him?"
"I didn't hate him ... It was so long ago ... "
"I suppose none of that matters now, does it?" He pointed to the drawing.
"I haven't seen him for years."
"You're going to see him in about an hour. He's coming here for dinner."
She moved her hand, tracing a spiral on the arm of the davenport, to convince herself that she could.
"Here?"
"Yes."
"You've asked him for dinner?"
He smiled; he remembered his resentment against the presence of guests in their house. He said: "This is different. I want him here. I don't think you remember him well — or you wouldn't be astonished."
She got up.
"All right, Gail. I'll give the orders. Then I'll get dressed."
They faced each other across the drawing room of Gail Wynand's penthouse. She thought how simple it was. He had always been here. He had been the motive power of every step she had taken in these rooms. He had brought her here and now he had come to claim this place. She was looking at him. She was seeing him as she had seen him on the morning when she awakened in his bed for the last time. She knew that neither his clothes nor the years stood between her and the living intactness of that memory. She thought this had been inevitable from the first, from the instant when she had looked down at him on the ledge of a quarry — it had to come like this, in Gail Wynand's house — and now she felt the peace of finality, knowing that her share of decision had ended; she had been the one who acted, but he would act from now on.
She stood straight, her head level; the planes of her face had a military cleanliness of precision and a feminine fragility; her hands hung still, composed by her sides, parallel with the long straight lines of her black dress.
"How do you do, Mr. Roark."
"How do you do, Mrs. Wynand."
"May I thank you for the house you have designed for us? It is the most beautiful of your buildings."
"It had to be, by the nature of the assignment, Mrs. Wynand."
She turned her head slowly.
"How did you present the assignment to Mr. Roark, Gail?"
"Just as I spoke of it to you."
She thought of what Roark had heard from Wynand, and had accepted. She moved to sit down; the two men followed her example. Roark said:
"If you like the house, the first achievement was Mr. Wynand's conception of it."
She asked: "Are you sharing the credit with a client?"
"Yes, in a way."
"I believe this contradicts what I remember of your professional convictions."
"But supports my personal ones."
"I'm not sure I ever understood that."
"I believe in conflict, Mrs. Wynand."
"Was there a conflict involved in designing this house?"
"The desire not to be influenced by my client."
"In what way?"
"I have liked working for some people and did not like working for others. But neither mattered. This time, I knew that the house would be what it became only because it was being done for Mr. Wynand. I had to overcome this. Or rather, I had to work with it and against it. It was the best way of working. The house had to surpass the architect, the client and the future tenant. It did."
"But the house — it's you, Howard," said Wynand. "It's still you."
It was the first sign of emotion on her face, a quiet shock, when she heard the "Howard." Wynand did not notice it. Roark did. He glanced at her — his first glance of personal contact. She could read no comment in it — only a conscious affirmation of the thought that had shocked her.
"Thank you for understanding that, Gail," he answered.
She was not certain whether she had heard him stressing the name.
"It's strange," said Wynand. "I am the most offensively possessive man on earth. I do something to things. Let me pick up an ash tray from a dime-store counter, pay for it and put it in my pocket — and it becomes a special kind of ash tray, unlike any on earth, because it's mine. It's an extra quality in the thing, like a sort of halo. I feel that about everything I own. From my overcoat — to the oldest linotype in the composing room — to the copies of the Banner on newsstands — to this penthouse — to my wife. And I've never wanted to own anything as much as I want this house you're going to build for me, Howard. I will probably be jealous of Dominique living in it — I can be quite insane about things like that. And yet — I don't feel that I'll own it, because no matter what I do or say, it's still yours. It will always be yours."
"It has to be mine," said Roark. "But in another sense, Gail, you own that house and everything else I've built. You own every structure you've stopped before and heard yourself answering."
"In what sense?"
"In the sense of that personal answer. What you feel in the presence of a thing you admire is just one word — 'Yes.' The affirmation, the acceptance, the sign of admittance. And that 'Yes' is more than an answer to one thing, it's a kind of 'Amen' to life, to the earth that holds this thing, to the thought that created it, to yourself for being able to see it. But the ability to say 'Yes' or 'No' is the essence of all ownership. It's your ownership of your own ego. Your soul, if you wish. Your soul has a single basic function — the act of valuing. 'Yes' or 'No,' 'I wish' or 'I do not wish.' You can't say 'Yes' without saying 'I.' There's no affirmation without the one who affirms. In this sense, everything to which you grant your love is yours."
"In this sense, you share things with others?"
"No. It's not sharing. When I listen to a symphony I love, I don't get from it what the composer got. His 'Yes' was different from mine. He could have no concern for mine and no exact conception of it. That answer is too personal to each man But in giving himself what he wanted, he gave me a great experience. I'm alone when I design a house, Gail, and you can never know the way in which I own it. But if you said you own 'Amen' to it — it's also yours. And I'm glad it's yours."