Not to come to him at his office; but to call on him at his apartment on the way downtown: "Dear Sir—Mr. Hugo Fosdick wishes you to call on him at the above address at nine to-morrow morning"—this on his private letter paper and signed by his secretary.
Hugo had taken an apartment in a fashionable bachelor flathouse a few months after he became a fourth vice-president. He was not ready to get married. There were only a few women—nine girls and two widows—in the class he deemed eligible, that is, having the looks, the family, and the large fortune, all of which would be indispensable to an aspirant for his hand. And of these eleven, none had as yet shown a sufficient degree of appreciation. Four treated him as they did the other men in their set—with no distinguishing recognition of his superiority of mind and body. Five were more appreciative, but they were, curiously and unfortunately enough, the least pleasing in the three vital respects. However, while he must put off marriage until he should find his affinity, there was no reason why he should continue in the paternal leading strings; so, he set up an establishment befitting his rank and wealth. He took the large flat with its three almost huge general rooms; and, of course he furnished it in that comfortless splendor in which live those of the civilized and semicivilized world in whom prosperity smothers all originality or desire for originality. For Hugo was most careful to do everything and anything expected of his "set" by the sly middle-class purveyors who think out the luxuries and fashions by which they live off the vanities and conventionalities of the rich.
When Armstrong appeared, Hugo had been shaved and bathed and massaged and manicured and perfumed and dressed; he was seated at a little breakfast table drawn near the open fire in the dining room, two men servants in attendance—a third had ushered Armstrong in. He was arrayed in a gray silk house suit, with facings of a deeper gray, over it a long grayish-purple silk and eiderdown robe. He was in the act of lighting a cigarette at the cut glass and gold lamp which his butler was holding respectfully.
"Ah—Armstrong!" he said, with that high-pitched voice and affected accent which makes the person who uses it seem to say, "You will note that I am a real aristocrat." Then to the butler, "I wish to be alone."
"Yes, sir," said the butler, with a bow. The other servant bowed also, and they left the room.
"Well, what is it, Fosdick?" said Armstrong, seating himself.
Hugo frowned at that familiarity, aggravated by the curt tone. "I shall not detain you long enough for you to be at the trouble of seating yourself," said he.
Armstrong reflected on this an instant before he grasped what Hugo was driving at. Then he smiled. "Go on—what is it?" he said, settling himself.
"I directed you to come here," said Hugo, "because I wished to avoid every possibility of scandal. I assume you understood, as soon as you got my note?"
Armstrong looked at him quizzically. "And I came," said he, "because I assumed you had some important, very private, message from your father. I thought perhaps your father would be here."