On a morning in February the telephone rang in his office. A brisk, emphatic feminine voice asked for an appointment with Mr. Roark, the architect. That afternoon, a brisk, small, dark-skinned woman entered the office; she wore a mink coat and exotic earrings that tinkled when she moved her head. She moved her head a great deal, in sharp little birdlike jerks. She was Mrs. Wayne Wilmot of Long Island and she wished to build a country house. She had selected Mr. Roark to build it, she explained, because he had designed the home of Austen Heller. She adored Austen Heller; he was, she stated, an oracle to all those pretending just the tiniest bit to the title of progressive intellectual, she thought--"don’t you?"--and she followed Heller like a zealot, "yes, literally, like a zealot." Mr. Roark was very young, wasn’t he?--but she didn’t mind that, she was very liberal and glad to help youth. She wanted a large house, she had two children, she believed in expressing their individuality--"don’t you?"--and each had to have a separate nursery, she had to have a library--"I read to distraction"--a music room, a conservatory--"we grow lilies-of-the-valley, my friends tell me it’s my flower"--a den for her husband, who trusted her implicitly and let her plan the house--"because I’m so good at it, if I weren’t a woman I’m sure I’d be an architect"--servants’ rooms and all that, and a three-car garage. After an hour and a half of details and explanations, she said: