There shot through Rangely's mind the reflection that Thayer Kent had not an over-abundance of this world's goods; and to this followed the less pleasant thought that he was himself in the same predicament. "But Jack Gerrish hasn't anything," he said, aloud. "But Janet has enough, so she can marry anybody she wants to," was the reply; "and Jack Gerrish is too perfectly lovely for anything." The visitor laughed, but he was evidently not at his ease. He was always uncomfortably conscious that Ethel had not the slightest possible scruple against laughing at him, and he was not a little afraid of her well-known propensity to tease. Ethel regarded him with secret amusement. A woman is seldom displeased at seeing a man disconcerted by her presence, even when she pities him and would fain put him at his ease. It is a tribute to her powers too genuine to be disputed, and while she may labor to overcome the man's feeling, her vanity cannot but be gratified that he has it. "Did you ever know anything like the way Elsie Dimmont is going on with Dr. Wilson?" Ethel said, presently, by way of continuing the conversation. "I can't see what she finds to like in him. He's as coarse as Fred Gore, only, of course, he's cleverer, and he isn't dissipated." "Wilson isn't a half bad fellow," Rangely replied, rather patronizingly. "Though, of course, I can understand that you wouldn't care for that kind of a man." "Am I so particular, then?" "Yes, I think you are." "Thank you for nothing." "Oh, I meant to be complimentary, I assure you. Isn't it a compliment to be thought particular in your tastes?" "That depends upon how you are told. Your manner was not at all calculated to flatter me. It said too plainly that you thought me captious." "But I don't." "Of course you wouldn't own it," Ethel retorted, playing with a tortoise-shell paper-cutter she had picked up from the table by which she sat; "but your manner was not to be mistaken. It betrayed you in spite of yourself." Rangely knew how foolish he was to be affected by light banter like this, but for his life he could not have helped it. The fact that Ethel knew how easily she could tease him lent a tantalizing sparkle to her eyes. She smiled mockingly as he vainly tried to keep the flush from rising in his cheeks. "You are singularly fond of teasing," he observed, in a manner he endeavored to make cool and philosophical. "Now you are calling me singular as well as captious." "The girl who is singular," returned he, in an endeavor to turn the talk by means of an epigram which only made matters worse for him, "the girl who is singular runs great risk of never becoming plural." Ethel laughed merrily, her glee arising chiefly from a sense of the chance he was giving her to work up one of those playful mock quarrels which amused her and so thoroughly teased her admirer.