“This begging, begging, begging is very tiresome,” the Baroness admitted. She wished she might say exactly what she and her noble husband felt concerning it. She had understood that some of these artists and writers in the village were exceedingly liberal in their views. “Mrs. Adrien Beekman has been bothering me about giving ambulances all this afternoon.”
“She is most patriotic,” he smiled, “but boring all the same.”
“I suppose you are one of these delightfully bad young men who say and do dreadful things,” she hazarded, a little later.
“I am both delightful and bad,” he admitted, “and a number of the things I have done and shall do are dreadful.”
“I am afraid of you,” she cried coquettishly.
There was about her throat a magnificent necklace, evidently that of which Lincoln had spoken at the Scribblers’ dinner. It was worth perhaps half of what the ambulance man had said. The stones were set in platinum.
“I wonder you are not afraid of wearing such a magnificent necklace here,” he said later.
“Are you so dangerous as that?” she retorted.
“Worse,” he answered.
She looked at him curiously. The Baroness liked young and good-looking men. Trent knew perfectly well what was going on in her mind. He had met women of this type before; women who could buy what they wanted and need not haggle at the price. Her eyes appraised him and she was satisfied with what she saw.