A management analyst is using exponential smoothing to predict merchandise returns at an upscale branch of a department store chain. Given an actual number of returns of $154$ items in the most recent period completed, a forecast of $172$ items for that period, and a smoothing constant of $0\mathrm{.}3,$ what is the forecast for the next period?

$161\mathrm{.}2$

$166\mathrm{.}6$

$172\mathrm{.}4$

$168\mathrm{.}5$