ROARK AND WYNAND STOOD ON THE TOP OF A HILL, LOOKING OVER a spread of land that sloped away in a long gradual curve. Bare trees rose on the hilltop and descended to the shore of a lake, their branches geometrical compositions cut through the air. The color of the sky, a clear, fragile blue-green, made the air colder. The cold washed the colors of the earth, revealing that they were not colors but only the elements from which color was to come, the dead brown not a full brown but a future green, the tired purple an overture to flame, the gray a prelude to gold. The earth was like the outline of a great story, like the steel frame of a building—to be filled and finished, holding all the splendor of the future in naked simplification.

“Where do you think the house should stand?” asked Wynand.

“Here,” said Roark.

“I hoped you’d choose this.”

Wynand had driven his car from the city, and they had walked for two hours down the paths of his new estate, through deserted lanes, through a forest, past the lake, to the hill. Now Wynand waited, while Roark stood looking at the countryside spread under his feet. Wynand wondered what reins this man was gathering from all the points of the landscape into his hand.

When Roark turned to him, Wynand asked:

“May I speak to you now?”

“Of course.” Roark smiled, amused by the deference which he had not requested.

Wynand’s voice sounded clear and brittle, like the color of the sky above them, with the same quality of ice-green radiance:

“Why did you accept this commission?”

“Because I’m an architect for hire.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do.”

“Don’t you hate my guts?”

“No. Why should I?”

“You want me to speak of it first?”

“Of what?”

“The Stoddard Temple.”

Roark smiled. “So you did check up on me since yesterday.”

“I read our clippings.” He waited, but Roark said nothing. “All of them.” His voice was harsh, half defiance, half plea. “Everything we said about you.” The calm of Roark’s face drove him to fury. He went on, giving slow, full value to each word: “We called you an incompetent fool, a tyro, a charlatan, a swindler, an egomaniac ...”

“Stop torturing yourself.”

Wynand closed his eyes, as if Roark had struck him. In a moment, he said:

“Mr. Roark, you don’t know me very well. You might as well learn this: I don’t apologize. I never apologize for any of my actions.”

“What made you think of apology? I haven’t asked for it.”

“I stand by every one of those descriptive terms. I stand by every word printed in the Banner.”

“I haven’t asked you to repudiate it.”

“I know what you think. You understood that I didn’t know about the Stoddard Temple yesterday. I had forgotten the name of the architect involved. You concluded it wasn’t I who led that campaign against you. You’re