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drawer and put them on. She went to the living room, closing the door carefully

behind her. She picked up the telephone and asked for the nearest sheriff’s

office.

"This is Mrs. Gail Wynand," she said. "I am speaking from the house of Mr.

Howard Roark at Monadnock Valley. I wish to report that my star-sapphire ring

was stolen here last night....About five thousand dollars....It was a present

from Mr. Roark....Can you get here within an hour?...Thank you."

She went to the kitchen, made coffee and stood watching the glow of the electric

coil under the coffee pot, thinking that it was the most beautiful light on

earth.

She set the table by the large window in the living room. He came out, wearing

nothing but a dressing gown, and laughed at the sight of her in his pyjamas. She

said: "Don’t dress. Sit down. Let’s have breakfast."

They were finishing when they heard the sound of the car stopping outside. She

smiled and walked to open the door.

There were a sheriff, a deputy and two reporters from local papers.

"Good morning," said Dominique. "Come in."

"Mrs....Wynand?" said the sheriff.

"That’s right. Mrs. Gail Wynand. Come in. Sit down."

In the ludicrous folds of the pyjamas, with dark cloth bulging over a belt wound

tightly, with sleeves hanging over her fingertips, she had all the poised

elegance she displayed in her best hostess gown. She was the only one who seemed

to find nothing unusual in the situation.

The sheriff held a notebook as if he did not know what to do with it. She helped

him to find the right questions and answered them precisely like a good

newspaper woman.

"It was a star-sapphire ring set in platinum. I took it off and left it here, on

this table, next to my purse, before going to bed....It was about ten o’clock

last night....When I got up this morning, it was gone....Yes, this window was

open....No, we didn’t hear anything....No, it was not insured, I have not had

the time, Mr. Roark gave it to me recently....No, there are no servants here and

no other guests....Yes, please look through the house....Living room, bedroom,

bathroom and kitchen....Yes, of course, you may look too, gentlemen. The press,

I believe? Do you wish to ask me any questions?"

593

There were no questions to ask. The story was complete. The reporters had never

seen a story of this nature offered in this manner.

She tried not to look at Roark after her first glance at his face. But he kept

his promise. He did not try to stop her or protect her. When questioned, he

answered, enough to support her statements.

Then the men departed. They seemed glad to leave. Even the sheriff knew that he

would not have to conduct a search for that ring.

Dominique said:

"I’m sorry. I know it was terrible for you. But it was the only way to get it

into the papers."

"You should have told me which one of your star sapphires I gave you."

"I’ve never had any. I don’t like star sapphires."

"That was a more thorough job of dynamiting than Cortlandt."

"Yes. Now Gail is blasted over to the side where he belongs. So he thinks you’re

an ’unprincipled, antisocial type of man’? Now let him see the Banner smearing

me also. Why should he be spared that? Sorry. Howard, I don’t have your sense of

mercy. I’ve read that editorial. Don’t comment on this. Don’t say anything about

self-sacrifice or I’ll break and...and I’m not quite as strong as that sheriff

is probably thinking. I didn’t do it for you. I’ve made it worse for you--I’ve

added scandal to everything else they’ll throw at you. But, Howard, now we stand

together--against all of them. You’ll be a convict and I’ll be an adulteress.

Howard, do you remember that I was afraid to share you with lunch wagons and

strangers’ windows? Now I’m not afraid to have this past night smeared all over

their newspapers. My darling, do you see why I’m happy and why I’m free?"

He said:

"I’ll never remind you afterward that you’re crying, Dominique."

#

The story, including the pyjamas, the dressing gown, the breakfast table and the

single bed, was in all the afternoon papers of New York that day.

Alvah Scarret walked into Wynand’s office and threw a newspaper down on his

desk. Scarret had never discovered how much he loved Wynand, until now, and he

was so hurt that he could express it only in furious abuse. He gulped:

"God damn you, you blasted fool! It serves you right! It serves you right and

I’m glad, damn your witless soul! Now what are we going to do?"

Wynand read the story and sat looking at the paper. Scarret stood before the

desk. Nothing happened. It was just an office, a man sat at a desk holding a

newspaper. He saw Wynand’s hands, one at each side of the sheet, and the hands

were still. No, he thought, normally a man would not be able to hold his hands

like that, lifted and unsupported, without a tremor.

Wynand raised his head. Scarret could discover nothing in his eyes, except a

kind of mild astonishment, as if Wynand were wondering what Scarret was doing

here. Then, in terror, Scarret whispered:

"Gail, what are we going to do?"

594

"We’ll run it," said Wynand. "It’s news."

"But...how?"

"In any way you wish."

Scarret’s voice leaped ahead, because he knew it was now or never, he would not

have the courage to attempt this again; and because he was caught here, he was

afraid to back toward the door.

"Gail, you must divorce her." He found himself still standing there, and he went

on, not looking at Wynand, screaming in order to get it said: "Gail, you’ve got

no choice now! You’ve got to keep what’s left of your reputation! You’ve got to

divorce her and it’s you who must file the suit!"

"All right."

"Will you? At once? Will you let Paul file the papers at once?"

"All right."

Scarret hurried out of the room. He rushed to his own office, slammed the door,

seized the telephone and called Wynand’s lawyer. He explained and went on

repeating: "Drop everything and file it now, Paul, now, today, hurry, Paul,

before he changes his mind!"

Wynand drove to his country house. Dominique was there, waiting for him.

She stood up when he entered her room. She stepped forward, so that there would

be no furniture between them; she wished him to see her whole body. He stood

across the empty space and looked at her as if he were observing them both at

once, an impartial spectator who saw Dominique and a man facing her, but no Gail

Wynand.

She waited, but he said nothing.

"Well, I’ve given you a story that will build circulation, Gail."

He had heard, but he looked as if nothing of the present were relevant. He

looked like a bank teller balancing a stranger’s account that had been overdrawn

and had to be closed. He said:

"I would like only to know this, if you’ll tell me: that was the first time

since our marriage?"

"Yes."

"But it was not the first time?"

"No. He was the first man who had me."

"I think I should have understood. You married Peter Keating. Right after the

Stoddard trial."

"Do you wish to ’know everything? I want to tell you. I met him when he was

working in a granite quarry. Why not? You’ll put him in a chain gang or a jute

mill. He was working in a quarry. He didn’t ask my consent. He raped me. That’s

how it began. Want to use it? Want to run it in the Banner?"

595

"He loved you."

"Yes."

"Yet he built this house for us."

"Yes."

"I only wanted to know."

He turned to leave.

"God damn you!" she cried. "If you can take it like this, you had no right to

become what you became!"

"That’s why I’m taking it."

He walked out of the room. He closed the door softly.

Guy Francon telephoned Dominique that evening. Since his retirement he had lived

alone on his country estate near the quarry town. She had refused to answer

calls today, but she took the receiver when the maid told her that it was Mr.

Francon. Instead of the fury she expected, she heard a gentle voice saying:

"Hello, Dominique."

"Hello, Father."

"You’re going to leave Wynand now?"

"Yes."

"You shouldn’t move to the city. It’s not necessary. Don’t overdo it. Come and

stay here with me. Until...the Cortlandt trial."

The things he had not said and the quality of his voice, firm, simple and with a

note that sounded close to happiness, made her answer, after a moment:

"All right, Father." It was a girl’s voice, a daughter’s voice, with a tired,

trusting, wistful gaiety. "I’ll get there about midnight. Have a glass of milk

for me and some sandwiches."

"Try not to speed as you always do. The roads aren’t too good."

When she arrived, Guy Francon met her at the door. They both smiled, and she

knew that there would be no questions, no reproaches. He led her to the small

morning room where he had set the food on a table by a window open to a dark

lawn. There was a smell of grass, candles on the table and a bunch of jasmine in

a silver bowl.

She sat, her fingers closed about a cold glass, and he sat across the table,

munching a sandwich peacefully.

"Want to talk, Father?"

"No. I want you to drink your milk and go to bed."

"All right."

596

He picked up an olive and sat studying it thoughtfully, twisting it on a colored

toothpick. Then he glanced up at her.

"Look, Dominique. I can’t attempt to understand it all. But I know this

much--that it’s the right thing for you. This time, it’s the right man."

"Yes, Father."

"That’s why I’m glad."

She nodded.

"Tell Mr. Roark that he can come here any time he wants."

She smiled. ’Tell whom, Father?"

"Tell...Howard."

Her arm lay on the table; her head dropped down on her arm. He looked at the

gold hair in the candlelight. She said, because it was easier to control a

voice: "Don’t let me fall asleep here. I’m tired."

But he answered:

"He’ll be acquitted, Dominique."

#

All the newspapers of New York were brought to Wynand’s office each day, as he

had ordered. He read every word of what was written and whispered in town.

Everybody knew that the story had been a self-frame-up; the wife of a

multimillionaire would not report the loss of a five-thousand-dollar ring in the

circumstances; but this did not prevent anyone from accepting the story as given

and commenting accordingly. The most offensive comments were spread on the pages

of the Banner.

Alvah Scarret had found a crusade to which he devoted himself with the truest

fervor he had ever experienced. He felt that it was his atonement for any

disloyalty he might have committed toward Wynand in the past. He saw a way to

redeem Wynand’s name. He set out to sell Wynand to the public as the victim of a

great passion for a depraved woman; it was Dominique who had forced her husband

to champion an immoral cause, against his better judgment; she had almost

wrecked her husband’s paper, his standing, his reputation, the achievement of

his whole life--for the sake of her lover. Scarret begged readers to forgive

Wynand--a tragic, self-sacrificing love was his justification. It was an inverse

ratio in Scarret’s calculations: every filthy adjective thrown at Dominique

created sympathy for Wynand in the reader’s mind; this fed Scarret’s smear

talent. It worked. The public responded, the Banner’s old feminine readers in

particular. It helped in the slow, painful work of the paper’s reconstruction.

Letters began to arrive, generous in their condolences, unrestrained in the

indecency of their comment on Dominique Francon. "Like the old days, Gail," said

Scarret happily, "just like the old days!" He piled all the letters on Wynand’s

desk.

Wynand sat alone in his office with the letters. Scarret could not suspect that

this was the worst of the suffering Gail Wynand was to know. He made himself

read every letter. Dominique, whom he had tried to save from the Banner...

597

When they met in the building, Scarret looked at him expectantly, with an

entreating, tentative half-smile, an eager pupil waiting for the teacher’s

recognition of a lesson well learned and well done. Wynand said nothing. Scarret

ventured once:

"It was clever, wasn’t it, Gail?"

"Yes."

"Have any idea on where we can milk it some more?"

"It’s your job, Alvah."

"She’s really the cause of everything, Gail. Long before all this. When you

married her. I was afraid then. That’s what started it. Remember when you didn’t

allow us to cover your wedding? That was a sign. She’s ruined the Banner. But

I’ll be damned if I don’t rebuild it now right on her own body. Just as it was.

Our old Banner."

"Yes."

"Got any suggestions, Gail? What else would you like me to do?"

"Anything you wish, Alvah."

18.

A TREE BRANCH hung in the open window. The leaves moved against the sky,

implying sun and summer and an inexhaustible earth to be used. Dominique thought

of the world as background. Wynand thought of two hands bending a tree branch to

explain the meaning of life. The leaves drooped, touching the spires of New

York’s skyline far across the river. The skyscrapers stood like shafts of

sunlight, washed white by distance and summer. A crowd filled the county

courtroom, witnessing the trial of Howard Roark.

Roark sat at the defense table. He listened calmly.

Dominique sat in the third row of spectators. Looking at her, people felt as if

they had seen a smile. She did not smile. She looked at the leaves in the