Amy increased Hugo's fury by laughing at him. "You'd better behave, Hugo," she said. "Come along." And she pushed him, less reluctant than he seemed, toward the stairway.
The three descended in the elevator together, Amy talking incessantly, Armstrong tranquil, Hugo sullen. At the seventeenth floor, Armstrong had the elevator stopped. "Good-by," he said to Amy, without offering to shake hands.
"Good-by," responded she, extending her hand, insistently. "Remember, we are friends again."
With a slight noncommittal smile, he touched her gloved fingers and went his way.
There was no one in Fosdick's private room; so, Hugo was free to ease his mind. "What do you mean by coming down here and making a scandal?" he burst out. "It was bad enough for you to encourage the fellow's attentions uptown—to flirt with him. You—flirting with one of your father's employees!"
Amy's eyes sparkled angrily. "Horace Armstrong is my best friend," she said. "You must be careful what you say to me about him."
"The next thing, you'll be boasting you're in love with him," sneered her brother.
"I might do worse," retorted she. "I could hardly do better."
"What's the matter, children?" cried their father, entering suddenly by a door which had been ajar, and by which they had not expected him.
"Hugo has been making a fool of himself before Armstrong," said Amy. "Why did you send him after me?"