The Fountainhead: Part 2: Chapter 7 Summary & Analysis

A week after the party, Dominique criticizes the Enright House in her column in the Banner called “Your House.” She says that “it will rise as a mockery to all the structures of the city” and will make itself part of the “great ineptitude” that surrounds it. Toohey comes into her office to say that her admiration for it will be obvious to anyone who can read between the lines—but that most people won’t. Dominique says it was written for those who won’t.

Toohey tells Dominique that she should take more of an interest in Keating, who is a “useful person to know.” He tells her that Keating and Roark went to Stanton together, and that Roark’s biggest struggle must be to see himself getting beaten repeatedly by Keating, who he knows is a mediocre architect. Dominique is visibly upset by this information and Toohey tells her she is “too obvious.”

That evening, Joel Sutton calls Dominique to ask if she really meant what she wrote about Roark in her column, and she asks him to meet her for lunch the next day. She tells him that the building Roark will build for him will be “great” and not “good,” something that the masses will not like. She recommends Keating instead because he is “famous and safe and popular.” Later, Sutton tells Roark that he has changed his mind, and Roark doesn’t seem to mind at all. But when Sutton tells him that Dominique persuaded him to do so, Roark is very amused.

That night, Dominique comes to see Roark, and he says he expected her to come that night. She tells him she wants him, but that she hates him for wanting him. She says she will destroy him while hoping that he can’t be destroyed. She says that she will come to sleep with him whenever she knows she has hurt him, and they proceed to have sex.