Ayn Rand: The Fountainhead

"Howard, I know what you intend to do at the trial. So it won't make any difference if they learn the truth about us."

"It won't make any difference."

"When you came that night and told me about Cortlandt, I didn't try to stop you. I knew you had to do it, it was your time to set the terms on which you could go on. This is my time. My Cortlandt explosion. You must let me do it my way. Don't question me. Don't protect me. No matter what I do."

"I know what you'll do."

"You know that I have to?"

"Yes."

She bent one arm from the elbow, fingers lifted, in a short, backward jolt, as if tossing the subject over her shoulder. It was settled and not to be discussed.

She turned away from him, she walked across the room, to let the casual ease of her steps make this her home, to state that his presence was to be the rule for ail her coming days and she had no need to do what she wanted most at this moment: stand and look at him. She knew also what she was delaying, because she was not ready and would never be ready. She stretched her hand out for his package of cigarettes on the table.

His fingers closed over her wrist and he pulled her hand back. He pulled her around to face him, and then he held her and his mouth was on hers. She knew that every moment of seven years when she had wanted this and stopped the pain and thought she had won, was not past, had never been stopped, had lived on, stored, adding hunger to hunger, and now she had to feel it all, the touch of his body, the answer and the waiting together.

She didn't know whether her discipline had helped; not too well, she thought, because she saw that he had lifted her in his arms, carried her to a chair and sat down, holding her on his knees; he laughed without sound, as he would have laughed at a child, but the firmness of his hands holding her showed concern and a kind of steadying caution. Then it seemed simple, she had nothing to hide from him, she whispered: "Yes, Howard ... that much ... " and he said: "It was very hard for me — all these years." And the years were ended.

She slipped down, to sit on the floor, her elbows propped on his knees, she looked up at him and smiled, she knew that she could not have reached this white serenity except as the sum of all the colors, of all the violence she had known. "Howard ... willingly, completely, and always ... without reservations, without fear of anything they can do to you or me ... in any way you wish ... as your wife or your mistress, secretly or openly ... here, or in a furnished room I'll take in some town near a jail where I'll see you through a wire net ... it won't matter ... Howard, if you win the trial — even that won't matter too much. You've won long ago ... I'll remain what I am, and I'll remain with you — now and ever — in any way you want ... "

He held her hands in his, she saw his shoulders sagging down to her, she saw him helpless, surrendered to this moment, as she was — and she knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness, yet they could let each other see it without need of protection. It was growing dark, the room was indistinguishable, only the window remained and his shoulders against the sky in the window.

She awakened with the sun in her eyes. She lay on her back, looking at the ceiling as she had looked at the leaves. Not to move, to guess by hints, to see everything through the greater intensity of implication. The broken triangles of light on the angular modeling of the ceiling's plastic tiles meant that it was morning and that this was a bedroom at Monadnock, the geometry of fire and structure above her designed by him. The fire was white — that meant it was very early and the rays came through clean country air, with nothing anywhere in space between this bedroom and the sun. The weight of the blanket, heavy and intimate on her naked body, was everything that had been last night. And the skin she felt against her arm was Roark asleep beside her.

She slipped out of bed. She stood at the window, her arms raised, holding on to the frame at each side. She thought if she looked back she would see no shadow of her body on the floor, she felt as if the sunlight went straight through her, because her body had no weight.

But she had to hurry before he awakened. She found his pyjamas in a dresser 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?"

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?"