The Fountainhead Part 2, Chapter 8

Ellsworth comes to see Dominique. She has been giving dinner parties and being nice to people (strange behavior for her) and praising Keating to everyone she meets. Dominique has already landed him four commissions. Ellsworth makes it clear that he knows what she's doing, and says in order to be allies they need not have a common aim, just a common enemy. They agree to be allies, neither one demanding the other's reasons, and Ellsworth tells her to stop mentioning his name in her column so often and to make sure that he doesn't get the commission for the Gilbert Colton factory. The scene ends with the two looking out the window on the city.

Dominique has learned to associate with people and "accept self-torture as an endurance test" in order to destroy Roark. Often she comes to his room; their sex is always like an act of violence. Once she sees a copy of the Banner open to an article she had written about him in Roark's apartment. This angers her - although she wants him to read everything she writes, she also wants it to hurt so much that he chooses to avoid the articles. Later, during sex, seeing the article brings her to a new height of passion. People talk about the hatred between Miss Francon and Mr. Roark; it becomes almost a fabled rivalry. Austen Heller comes to see her about it, and calls her an irresponsible bitch; she doesn't deny it. Roger Enright comes to see her, and takes her to see the Enright House, so that when she writes, her column isn't based on stupidity and ignorance. Roark is there, and he shows her around, giving her a tour as if she were any other person. When she writes about it in her column, she says that a bomb should blow it up; the inhabitants will only degrade it further. Roark tells her later that Roger is baffled by it; he says she should stop handing him such praise, because somebody might see it.

Dominique enjoys seeing Roark at gatherings where he must call her Miss Francon; she likes watching him from across a room; she can own him there better than anywhere else.

Peter Keating is baffled by her newfound devotion to his career. Francon keeps asking him how he does it, and he avoids the question because he doesn't know. Everyone but he thinks she's in love with him. He has tried to get her alone to no avail. Finally, he runs into her at a restaurant, and asks why she has refused to see him, but she doesn't give him a straight answer. She won't tell him if she thinks he's a good architect, only saying, "You sell like hotcakes. Isn't that proof?" Keating frequently attends the meetings of the Council of American Builders; Prescott often speaks, but nothing really gets accomplished. One night after a meeting, Keating and Toohey walk together and Toohey tells Keating that kindness is the greatest virtue.