When the two were in the elevator on their way to the view from the top of the building, Amy glanced mischievously up at him. "You see, I got my way," said she. "I always do."
Armstrong shrugged and smiled stolidly. "In trifles. Willful people are always winning—in trifles."
"Trifles are all that women deal in," rejoined she.
At the top, she sent one swift glance round the overwhelming panorama of peak and precipice and canon swept by icy January wind and ran back to the tower, drawing her furs still closer about her. "I didn't come to see this," she said. "I came to find out why you don't—why you have cut me off your visiting list. I've written you—I've tried to get you on the telephone. Never did I humiliate myself so abjectly—in fact, never before was I abject at all. It isn't like you, to be as good friends as you and I have been, and then, all at once, to act like this—unless there was a reason. I haven't many friends. I haven't any I like so well as you—that's frank, isn't it? I thought we were going to be such friends." This nervously, with an air of timidity that was the thin cover of perfect self-possession and self-confidence.
"So did I," said Armstrong, his eyes on hers with a steadiness she could not withstand, "until I got at your notion of friendship. You can have dogs and servants, hangers-on, but not friends."
"What did I do?" she asked innocently. "Gracious, how touchy you are."
In his eyes there was an amused refusal to accept her pretense. "You understand. Don't 'fake' with me. I'm too old a bird for that snare."
"If I did anything to offend you, it was unconscious."
"Perhaps it was—at the time. You've got the habit of ordering people about, of having everybody do just what you wish. But, in thinking things over, didn't you guess what discouraged me?"
She decided to admit what could not be denied. "Yes—I did," said she. "And that is why I've come to you. I forgot, and treated you like the others. I did it several times, and disregarded the danger signals you flew. Let's begin once more—will you?"