As Roark enters the building housing The New York Banner, he reflects that Gail Wynand is the man whom he has come nearest to hating in his life. Wynand is both the symbol of the mindless conventionality that Henry Cameron saw as his primary enemy—and the husband of Dominique. Roark enters Wynand’s office prepared to refuse any commission he is offered. Wynand, in turn, believes this interview will go exactly as all previous interviews with architects have gone: He merely has to speak to convey what he wants. The architect then nods in understanding, and the interview ends. But when Roark and Wynand meet face to face, neither of them is certain that there is not a moment when each stops in his normal course of movement. There is a moment when each forgets the immediate reality—when Wynand forgets the building he wishes to construct, and Roark is oblivious to the fact that this man is Dominique’s husband—and focuses solely on the man he meets. There is one instant in which there is “only the total awareness, for each, of the man before him, only two thoughts meeting in the middle of the room—‘This is Gail Wynand’—‘This is Howard Roark.’”
Wynand intends to build a private home in Connecticut, and has purchased five hundred acres for that purpose. He has taken a long time to choose his architect. He has traveled around the country looking at buildings—at homes, at hotels, at office buildings. He never before heard of Roark. But then he saw Monadnock Valley, and recognized it as a masterpiece. After that, whenever he sees a building he likes, he asks who the architect is, and he always receives the same answer: Howard Roark. Wynand states that he wishes his home to have “the Roark quality,” a sense of a joy that is so demanding and uplifting that it “makes one feel as if it were an achievement to experience it.” Roark accepts the commission and Wynand explains his thinking regarding the home he wants.
Wynand desires a fortress in the country, so that he will not have to share Dominique with the people of the city. He tells Roark that he feels something much worse and much stronger than jealousy, that he cannot stand to see her on the streets of the city and must take her away from any contact with the shops, the streets, the taxicabs. He wants a fortress in which Dominique will be touched by neither the conventional lives of the men of the city nor the vulgar affairs of The Banner. He wants his home to be a vault to guard treasures too precious for the sight of men, but more, a world so beautiful that Dominique will not miss the one she’s left. Wynand wants something sacred. He asks Roark if he’s ever built a temple. He wants a temple built to Dominique Wynand—and he hires Roark to build it. He chooses Roark—even though he was away at the time of the Stoddard Temple and knows nothing about it—because what he sees in the Monadnock Valley Resort and in Roark’s other buildings conveys a quality of the sublime akin to religion. He tells Roark that, when he finds an artist whose work he admires, he refuses to meet him, out of fear that the creator will not match his creation. When he meets Roark, however, Wynand realizes that this is one case in which an artist matches the greatness of his work. When Roark departs, Wynand has the paper’s morgue send him all the material it has on Howard Roark and his career.
Alvah Scarrett hears of Roark’s visit to Wynand’s office, and tells Toohey. Both are concerned regarding the change that Dominique has wrought in their boss’s attitude—by how he now kills popular pieces of trite sentimentality that he formerly published. But Toohey has succeeded in the past several years in placing his followers in positions of influence on The Banner. He tells Scarrett that if it comes to a showdown regarding control of the paper, the two of them do not have to worry about Gail Wynand any longer. Toohey is confident that he now has the power to control the newspaper.
Wynand and Roark become close friends, drawn together by their mutual love of man’s highest accomplishments. Wynand makes clear how much he admires Roark’s rise from humble origins. Nevertheless, driven by an uncontrollable lust to prove to himself that there are no men of integrity, he attempts to bribe and intimidate Roark into selling his soul for profit. He offers to build the home exactly as Roark has designed it, and to hire Roark as the exclusive architect for all future Wynand construction projects. In exchange for such a massive boost to his career, Wynand demands that all future Roark buildings be designed in compliance with traditional standards. He wants Roark to “build Colonial houses, Rococo hotels and semi-Grecian office buildings.” He warns Roark that, should he refuse, Wynand will use his considerable influence to make sure that no future commissions will be offered to him, and that even the work gangs and granite quarries will be closed to him. Roark knows that Wynand is serious. He responds by telling Wynand that what the newspaperman wants is easy. He reaches for a slip of paper on Wynand’s desk and proceeds to draw an adaptation of Wynand’s home—but “with Colonial porches, a gambrel roof, two massive chimneys, a few little pilasters, a few porthole windows.” He shows Wynand the sketch and asks if this is what he wants. Wynand gasps involuntarily. “Good God, no!” “Then shut up,” said Roark, “and don’t ever let me hear any architectural suggestions.” Wynand slumps in his chair, defeated, and asks Roark if he realizes what kind of a chance he has taken. Roark says he took no chance, that he had an ally he could trust. When Wynand asks, “What, your integrity?” Roark replies, “Yours, Gail.” Wynand realizes that he has finally met a man whose spirit cannot be broken. The results in Wynand’s life, in the long run, will be monumental.
