"One has to be modest when you appear, Mr. Rangely," Miss Mott declared, saucily, "simply to keep up the average."
"Come," Fenton said, "this will serve as an excellent beginning for a quarrel. I will leave you to carry it on by yourselves. I have got too old for that sort of amusement."
Rangely looked after the artist as the latter took himself off to join
Mrs. Staggchase, who was holding court not far away.
"You may follow if you want to," Ethel said, intercepting the glance.
Rangely laughed, a trifle uneasily.
"I don't want to," he replied, "if you will be good natured."
"Good natured? I like that! I am always good natured. You had better go than to stay and abuse me. But then, as you have been at Mrs. Staggchase's all the afternoon, you ought to be pretty well talked out."
The young man turned toward her with an air of mingled surprise and impatience.
"Who said I had been there?" he demanded.
"It was in the evening papers," she returned, teasingly. "All your movements are chronicled now you have become a great man."