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I really like this part of the story. For a man like Roark the Aquitania hotel was like his very own child. He visits the unfinished site like one would visit a grave. “An old watchmen lived in a cubbyhole at the back of the ground floor. He knew Roark and let him wander around. Once, he stopped Roark on the way out and said suddenly; ‘I had a son once – almost. He was born dead.’ Something had made him say that, and he looked at Roark, not quite certain of what he had wanted to say. But Roark smiled, his eyes closed, and his hand covered the old man’s shoulder, like a handshake, and then he walked away.” (Rand, 1943, p. 346)