The Fountainhead: Gail Wynand: 5

Keating hesitates momentarily, but he agrees to the divorce when assured he will get the Stoneridge commission. On top of that, Wynand gives him a check for $250,000. That had to be significant money in those days.

Before heading west, Dominique visits Mallory, who, unprompted, brings her up to date on Roark's activities. Currently the Übermensch is working as architect of a department store in Clayton, Ohio.

Keating feels lousy about himself. He drops in on Toohey and gives the man a check for $10,000 for the charity of his choosing. He tells Toohey about Dominique leaving him to marry Wynand. This is alarming news.

Toohey has lunch with Scarret. They agree that both Dominique and Wynand are dangerous. Putting them together makes dangerous squared. Shiver. There's probably no way to stop the marriage, but Toohey and Scarret need to work together. Toohey asks Scarret to demonstrate their solidarity by firing Jimmy Kearns, a smart, independent-minded drama critic for the Banner, and replace him with Jules Fougler, well-known but expensive.

Scarret talks to Wynand about the planned marriage to Dominique. She will be a divorcee! What a scandal! Wynand is unmoved. He issues instructions that none of the papers in the Wynand chain shall ever publish any story or picture featuring Dominique, other than a brief announcement of Wynand's wedding.

Dominique has subconsciously chosen a train route from New York to Reno that includes a stop in Clayton, Ohio. When she hears the station announced, she gets out, and she seeks out Roark's department store construction site. At the site, she encounters Roark, and they bring one another up to date. Dominique asks if she can stay the night; he refuses. She asks him to give up architecture and marry her. As kindly as he can manage, he declines and tells her to marry Wynand (even though this is, from Roark's perspective, an even worse match than Keating, due to the implacable dedication to mediocrity of the Wynand papers). Roark then escorts Dominique back to the train station, where she boards a train heading west.