Dagny voluntarily works as Galt’s cook and housemaid in the valley. The strikers don’t always stay in the valley; they often go to the outside world in order to further their cause. But it’s now June, and ever since the valley was established 12 years earlier, the strikers have spent this month at the valley to rest and enjoy time with friends. For the past 12 years, Galt has eaten breakfast on June 1st with his two closest friends: Ragnar Danneskjöld and Francisco d’Anconia. Francisco arrives late this year after desperately seeking the wreckage of Dagny’s plane in the mountains. He is overjoyed to find her alive.
Francisco accepts that he has lost Dagny, believing that she now loves Hank Rearden. But Dagny realizes that John Galt is the man that she has looked for all her life. However, she knows that because of his strike, she and Galt stand on opposite sides, and she may never have him. Galt also expresses the depth of his feelings for Dagny, saying that when he first saw her he knew that the abandonment of his motor was not the hardest price he would pay for his strike. He loves her, but he can’t touch her because she still works within the looters’ system.
Galt knows about the past relationship between Francisco and Dagny and understands that Francisco continues to love her. Dagny fears that Galt may veil his own feelings in order to spare his dearest friend any pain, but Galt refuses to do so, because making such a sacrifice for Francisco would violate his code. Galt requires that Dagny spend a full month in the valley while she decides whether to stay with the strikers or leave. Dagny decides to earn her keep by working as Galt’s housemaid during that time. Francisco invites Dagny to stay at his house during the last week of her stay. Dagny puts the decision in Galt’s hands, and he declines Francisco’s invitation on her behalf.
Although she loves Galt and everything for which the valley stands, at the end of the month, Dagny still believes that there is a chance to defeat the looters and save her railroad, so she decides to return to the outside world. She takes an oath not to reveal the existence of the valley to anyone. Although his friends advise him not to, Galt says that he’ll return to the outside world as well, so he can watch Dagny and wait for the day when she decides to join the strike. Galt stipulates that Dagny cannot try to find him and cannot know where he works.
