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waiting room, across a wooden floor studded with lumps of dry chewing gum,

through the heavy billows of heat from an iron stove, to the square beyond the

station.

She saw a last band of yellow in the sky above the low roof lines. She saw a

pitted stretch of paving bricks, and small houses leaning against one another; a

bare tree with twisted branches, skeletons of weeds at the doorless opening of

an abandoned garage, dark shop fronts, a drugstore still open on a corner, its

lighted window dim, low over the ground.

She had never been here before, but she felt this place proclaiming its

ownership of her, closing in about her with ominous intimacy. It was as if every

dark mass exercised a suction like the pull of the planets in space, prescribing

her orbit. She put her hand on a fire hydrant and felt the cold seeping through

her glove into her skin. This was the way the town told her, a direct

penetration which neither her clothes nor her mind could stop. The peace of the

inevitable remained. Only now she had to act, but the actions were simple, set

in advance. She asked a passer-by: "Where is the site of the new building of

Janer’s Department Store?"

She walked patiently through the dark streets. She walked past desolate winter

lawns and sagging porches; past vacant lots where weeds rustled against tin

cans; past closed grocery stores and a steaming laundry; past an uncurtained

window where a man in shirt sleeves sat by a fire, reading a paper. She turned

corners and crossed streets, with the feel of cobblestones under the thin soles

of her pumps. Rare passersby looked, astonished, at her air of foreign elegance.

She noticed it; she felt an answering wonder. She wanted to say: But don’t you

understand?--I belong here more than you do. She stopped, once in a while,

closing her eyes; she found it difficult to breathe.

She came to Main Street and walked slower. There were a few lights, cars parked

diagonally at the curb, a movie theater, a store window displaying pink

underwear among kitchen utensils. She walked stiffly, looking ahead.

She saw a glare of light on the side of an old building, on a blind wall of

yellow bricks showing the sooted floor lines of the neighboring structure that

had been torn down. The light came from an excavation pit. She knew this was the

site. She hoped it was not. If they worked late, he would be here. She did not

want to see him tonight. She had wanted only to see the place and the building;

she was not ready for more; she had wanted to see him tomorrow. But she could

not stop now. She walked to the excavation. It lay on a corner, open to the

street, without fence. She heard the grinding clatter of iron, she saw the arm

of a derrick, the shadows of men on the slanting sides of fresh earth, yellow in

the light. She could not see the planks that led up to the sidewalk, but she

heard the sound of steps and then she saw Roark coming up to the street. He was

hatless, he had a loose coat hanging open.

He stopped. He looked at her. She thought that she was standing straight; that

it was simple and normal, she was seeing the gray eyes and the orange hair as

she had always seen them. She was astonished that he moved toward her with a

kind of urgent haste, that his hand closed over her elbow too firmly and he

said: "You’d better sit down."

Then she saw she could not have stood up without that hand on her elbow. He took

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her suitcase. He led her across the dark side street and made her sit down on

the steps of a vacant house. She leaned back against a closed door. He sat down

beside her. He kept his hand tight on her elbow, not a caress, but an impersonal

hold of control over both of them.

After a while he dropped his hand. She knew that she was safe now. She could

speak.

"That’s your new building?"

"Yes. You walked here from the station?"

"Yes."

"It’s a long walk."

"I think it was."

She thought that they had not greeted each other and that it was right. This was

not a reunion, but just one moment out of something that had never been

interrupted. She thought how strange it would be if she ever said "Hello" to

him; one did not greet oneself each morning.

"What time did you get up today?" she asked.

"At seven."

"I was in New York then. In a cab, going to Grand Central. Where did you have

breakfast?"

"In a lunch wagon."

"The kind that stays open all night?"

"Yes. Mostly for truck drivers."

"Do you go there often?"

"Whenever I want a cup of coffee."

"And you sit at a counter? And there are people around, looking at you?"

"I sit at a counter when I have the time. There are people around. I don’t think

they look at me much."

"And afterward? You walk to work?"

"Yes."

"You walk every day? Down any of these streets? Past any window? So that if one

just wanted to reach and open the window..."

"People don’t stare out of windows here."

From the vantage of the high stoop they could see the excavation across the

street, the earth, the workmen, the rising steel columns in a glare of harsh

light. She thought it was strange to see fresh earth in the midst of pavement

and cobblestones; as if a piece had been torn from the clothing of a town,

showing naked flesh. She said:

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"You’ve done two country homes in the last two years."

"Yes. One in Pennsylvania and one near Boston."

"They were unimportant houses."

"Inexpensive, if that’s what you mean. But very interesting to do."

"How long will you remain here?"

"Another month."

"Why do you work at night?"

"It’s a rush job."

Across the street the derrick was moving, balancing a long girder in the air.

She saw him watching it, and she knew he was not thinking of it, but there was

the instinctive response in his eyes, something physically personal, intimacy

with any action taken for his building.

"Roark..."

They had not pronounced each other’s names. It had the sensuous pleasure of a

surrender long delayed--to pronounce the name and to have him hear it.

"Roark, it’s the quarry again."

He smiled. "If you wish. Only it isn’t."

"After the Enright House? After the Cord Building?"

"I don’t think of it that way."

"How do you think of it?"

"I love doing it. Every building is like a person. Single and unrepeatable."

He was looking across the street. He had not changed. There was the old sense of

lightness in him, of ease in motion, in action, in thought. She said, her

sentence without beginning or end:

"...doing five-story buildings for the rest of your life..."

"If necessary. But I don’t think it will be like that."

"What are you waiting for?"

"I’m not waiting."

She closed her eyes, but she could not hide her mouth; her mouth held

bitterness, anger and pain.

"Roark, if you’d been in the city, I wouldn’t have come to see you."

"I know it."

"But it was you--in another place--in some nameless hole of a place like this. I

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had to see it. I had to see the place."

"When are you going back?"

"You know I haven’t come to remain?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"You’re still afraid of lunch wagons and windows."

"I’m not going back to New York. Not at once."

"No?"

"You haven’t asked me anything, Roark. Only whether I walked from the station."

"What do you want me to ask you?"

"I got off the train when I saw the name of the station," she said, her voice

dull. "I didn’t intend coming here. I was on my way to Reno."

"And after that?"

"I will marry again."

"Do I know your fiancé?"

"You’ve heard of him. His name is Gail Wynand."

She saw his eyes. She thought she should want to laugh; she had brought him at

last to a shock she had never expected to achieve. But she did not laugh. He

thought of Henry Cameron; of Cameron saying: I have no answer to give them,

Howard. I’m leaving you to face them. You’ll answer them. All of them, the

Wynand papers and what makes the Wynand papers possible and what lies behind

that.

"Roark."

He didn’t answer.

"That’s worse than Peter Keating, isn’t it?" she asked.

"Much worse."

"Do you want to stop me?"

"No."

He had not touched her since he had released her elbow, and that had been only a

touch proper in an ambulance. She moved her hand and let it rest against his. He

did not withdraw his fingers and he did not pretend indifference. She bent over,

holding his hand, not raising it from his knee, and she pressed her lips to his

hand. Her hat fell off, he saw the blond head at his knees, he felt her mouth

kissing his hand again and again. His fingers held hers, answering, but that was

the only answer.

She raised her head and looked at the street. A lighted window hung in the

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distance, behind a grillwork of bare branches. Small houses stretched off into

the darkness, and trees stood by the narrow sidewalks.

She noticed her hat on the steps below and bent to pick it up. She leaned with

her bare hand flat against the steps. The stone was old, worn smooth, icy. She

felt comfort in the touch. She sat for a moment, bent over, palm pressed to the

stone; to feel these steps--no matter how many feet had used them--to feel them

as she had felt the fire hydrant.

"Roark, where do you live?"

"In a rooming house."

"What kind of a room?"

"Just a room."

"What’s in it? What kind of walls?"

"Some sort of wallpaper. Faded."

"What furniture?"

"A table, chairs, a bed."

"No, tell me in detail."

"There’s a clothes closet, then a chest of drawers, the bed in the corner by the

window, a large table at the other side--"

"By the wall?"

"No, I put it across the corner, to the window--I work there. Then there’s a

straight chair, an armchair with a bridge lamp and a magazine rack I never use.

I think that’s all."

"No rugs? Or curtains?"

"I think there’s something at the window and some kind of rug. The floor is

nicely polished, it’s beautiful old wood."

"I want to think of your room tonight--on the train."

He sat looking across the street. She said:

"Roark, let me stay with you tonight."

"No."

She let her glance follow his to the grinding machinery below. After a while she

asked:

"How did you get this store to design?"

"The owner saw my buildings in New York and liked them."

A man in overalls stepped out of the excavation pit, peered into the darkness at

them and called: "Is that you up there, boss?"

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"Yes," Roark called back.

"Come here a minute, will you?"

Roark walked to him across the street. She could not hear their conversation,

but she heard Roark saying gaily: "That’s easy," and then they both walked down

the planks to the bottom. The man stood talking, pointing up, explaining. Roark

threw his head back, to glance up at the rising steel frame; the light was full

on his face, and she saw his look of concentration, not a smile, but an

expression that gave her a joyous feeling of competence, of disciplined reason

in action. He bent, picked up a piece of board, took a pencil from his pocket.

He stood with one foot on a pile of planks, the board propped on his knee, and

drew rapidly, explaining something to the man who nodded, pleased. She could not

hear the words, but she felt the quality of Roark’s relation to that man, to all

the other men in that pit, an odd sense of loyalty and of brotherhood, but not

the kind she had ever heard named by these words. He finished, handed the board

to the man, and they both laughed at something. Then he came back and sat down

on the steps beside her.

"Roark," she said. "I want to remain here with you for all the years we might

have."

He looked at her, attentively, waiting.

"I want to live here." Her voice had the sound of pressure against a dam. "I

want to live as you live. Not to touch my money--I’ll give it away, to anyone,

to Steve Mallory, if you wish, or to one of Toohey’s organizations, it doesn’t

matter. We’ll take a house here--like one of these--and I’ll keep it for

you--don’t laugh, I can--I’ll cook, I’ll wash your clothes, I’ll scrub the

floor. And you’ll give up architecture."

He had not laughed. She saw nothing but an unmoving attention prepared to listen

on.

"Roark, try to understand, please try to understand. I can’t bear to see what

they’re doing to you, what they’re going to do. It’s too great--you and building

and what you feel about it. You can’t go on like that for long. It won’t last.

They won’t let you. You’re moving to some terrible kind of disaster. It can’t

end any other way. Give it up. Take some meaningless job--like the quarry. We’ll

live here. We’ll have little and we’ll give nothing. We’ll live only for what we

are and for what we know."

He laughed. She heard, in the sound of it, a surprising touch of consideration

for her--the attempt not to laugh; but he couldn’t stop it.

"Dominique." The way he pronounced the name remained with her and made it easier

to hear the words that followed: "I wish I could tell you that it was a

temptation, at least for a moment. But it wasn’t." He added: "If I were very

cruel, I’d accept it. Just to see how soon you’d beg me to go back to building."