Toohey has no chance with independent men who have no need of him. But with dependent souls, like his niece, Catherine Halsey, he has complete success. He preaches to her the evil of selfishness and the virtue of selflessness. But Katie loves Peter Keating sincerely. She realizes that selflessness entails the sacrifice of her values, including the renunciation of her engagement, and she recoils from this. At some uncomprehended emotional level, Katie senses her uncle's threat. When convinced that Keating will marry her, she spontaneously cries: "I'm not afraid of you, Uncle Ellsworth!" But Keating does not marry her. Toohey has long urged Keating to marry Dominique instead. When Toohey succeeds in this goal, he has accomplished two tasks with one stroke: He has emptied Keating's soul of its last personal value, and he has emptied Katie's soul of its only one. Both are now utterly selfless, devoid of loves of their own. Both are now floundering wrecks, whose empty lives are absent of meaning and who are incapable of self-guidance. Toohey, the spider ever increasing his supply of flies, has just added two more to his web. From now on, he controls the lives of both Keating and his niece. But he fails miserably with Roark.
Despite the notoriety of the Stoddard Temple — Toohey's best effort against Roark — the decline in Roark's career is only temporary. The Enright House, the Cord Building, the Aquitania Hotel, and the Stoddard Temple are major projects, and Roark's designs are brilliant. These buildings are known and will attract to Roark in the future the kind of clients who care only about the quality of an architect's work, and not about his social standing. Primarily, these buildings will draw Gail Wynand's attention to Roark's work — with significant positive consequences for Roark's career.
Roark's life is profoundly improved in another way, as well: his relationship with Dominique Francon. Dominique is intensely idealistic — she responds positively only to the sight of man's noblest accomplishments. Her reverence for the Greek statuette, for Roark's buildings, and for his character demonstrate her commitment to man at his highest and best. She can feel nothing, only indifference, for anything less. Dominique is a sincere hero-worshipper. She understands that the greatest men and women of history — Aristotle, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Marie Curie — represent the human potential; she knows that these are the individuals we must admire and emulate. Dominique will settle for nothing less. Howard Roark is that ideal, and Dominique recognizes it instantly. Though consciously wondering at the quarry whether Roark is a convict, Dominique responds to Roark at a deeper level. Reminiscent of Aristotle's insight that "the eyes are the windows of the soul," she recognizes that Roark's "is the face of a god," as she later explains to Kiki Holcolmbe. It is important to note, regarding Dominique, that, despite meeting Roark at the lowest point of his career, she knows from one glance at his face, his eyes, his posture, his movements, that there is some special and proud quality about this man. Later, she is not surprised to discover that he is the designer of the Enright House. She gives herself to Roark in the first moment of meeting and, at the deepest spiritual level, remains true to him for the rest of her life.
