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when she spoke her voice was quite even and unconcerned.

“I’m getting a trifle tired of remarks as to my juvenile appearance,” she said. “First Biddy, then Mrs. Holmes, and now you. As a matter of fact, I’m twenty-three.”

“So old!” he mocked. “Well, I’m thirty-five. Almost old enough to be your father.”

“Old enough at least to have learned not to be impertinent,” she returned calmly.

At this he laughed again, and moved to the open doorway and stood there—not actually blocking her exit, but making it difficult for her to leave without pushing past him.

“Are we beginning to quarrel?” he asked, smiling at her with a sort of lazy insolence. “I’d hate to quarrel with anything as pretty as you are.”

“It’s charming of you to insist so on my prettiness.”

“Yes, isn’t it? I thought you’d like my candor. Most women do.”

At that Ann laughed. After all, it was much better to take his impudence as a joke.

“My beauty seems to have burst upon you rather suddenly. It wasn’t apparent last night.”

“Oh, yes it was,” he answered. “Don’t you make any mistake about that.”

What was she to do? How end this foolish scene?

“Mr. Waring,” she said, turning to him quite frankly, “you think it’s amusing to tease me, but I think it’s a little unkind. I can’t get out of that door without pushing past you.”

“I don’t object being pushed.”

“I wasn’t brought up to push.”

“There’s the window,” he suggested, “you might