“Ashley – Ashley – tell me – you must – oh, don’t tease me now! Have I your heart? Oh, my dear, I lo —”
His hand went across her lips, swiftly. The mask was gone.
“You must not say these things, Scarlett! You mustn’t. You don’t mean them. You’ll hate yourself for saying them, and you’ll hate me for hearing them!”
She jerked her head away. “I couldn’t ever hate you. I tell you I love you and I know you must care about me because —” She stopped. Never before had she seen so much misery in anyone’s face. “Ashley, do you care – you do, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said dully. “I care.”
She plucked at his sleeve, speechless.
“Scarlett,” he said, “can’t we go away and forget that we have ever said these things?”
“No,” she whispered. “I can’t. What do you mean? Don’t you want to – to marry me?”
He replied, “I’m going to marry Melanie.”
Somehow she found that she was sitting on the low velvet chair and Ashley, at her feet, was holding both her hands in his, in a hard grip. He was saying things – things that made no sense. Her mind was quite blank, quite empty of all the thoughts. His words fell on unhearing ears, words that were tender and full of pity, like a father speaking to a hurt child.
“Father is to announce the engagement tonight. We are to be married soon. I should have told you, but I thought you knew. I never dreamed that you – You’ve so many beaux. I thought Stuart —”
“But you just said you cared for me.”
His warm hands hurt hers.
“My dear, must you make me say things that will hurt you? Love isn’t enough to make a successful marriage when two people are as different as we are. You would want all of a man, Scarlett, his body, his heart, his soul, his thoughts. And I couldn’t give you all of me. And I would not want all of your mind and your soul. And you would be hurt, and then you would come to hate me! You would hate the books I read and the music I loved, because they took me away from you even for a moment.”
“Do you love her?”
“She is like me, part of my blood, and we understand each other. Can’t I make you see that a marriage can’t go on unless the two people are alike?”
“But you said you cared.”
“I shouldn’t have said it.”
Somewhere in her brain, a slow fire rose and rage began to blot out everything else.
“Well, having been cad enough to say it —”
His face went white.
“I was a cad to say it, as I’m going to marry Melanie. How could I help caring for you – you who have all the passion for life that I have not?”
She thought of Melanie, her gentle silences. And then her rage broke. There was nothing in her now of the well-bred Robillards.
“Why don’t you say it, you coward! You’re afraid to marry me! You’d rather live with that stupid little fool who can’t open her mouth except to say ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ and raise brats just like her! Why —”
“You must not say these things about Melanie!”
“Who are you to tell me I mustn’t? You coward, you cad, you – You made me believe you were going to marry me —”
“Be fair,” his voice pleaded. “Did I ever —”
She did not want to be fair, although she knew what he said was true. He had never once crossed the borders of friendliness with her and, when she thought of this her anger rose, the anger of hurt pride and feminine vanity. She had run after him and he would have none of her.
She sprang to her feet, her hands clenched and he rose towering over her. “I shall hate you till I die, you cad – you lowdown – lowdown —” What was the word she wanted? She could not think of any word bad enough.
“Scarlett – please —”
He put out his hand toward her and, as he did, she slapped him across the face with all the strength she had. The noise cracked like a whip in the still room and suddenly her rage was gone, and there was emptiness in her heart.
The red mark of her hand showed plainly on his white tired face. He said nothing but lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. Then he was gone before she could speak again, closing the door softly behind him.
She sat down again very suddenly, her knees feeling weak. He was gone and the memory of his face would haunt her till she died. She had lost him forever. Now he would hate her and every time he looked at her he would remember how she threw herself at him when he had given her no reason at all.
Her hand dropped to a little table beside her, fingering a tiny china rose-bowl. The room was so still she almost screamed to break the silence. She must do something or go mad. She picked up the bowl and threw it viciously across the room toward the fireplace.
“This,” said a voice from the depths of the sofa, “is too much.”
Nothing had ever frightened her so much, and her mouth went too dry for her to utter a sound. She caught hold of the back of the chair, her knees going weak under her, as Rhett Butler rose from the sofa where he had been lying and made her a bow of politeness.
“It is bad enough to have an afternoon nap disturbed by such a passage as I’ve been forced to hear, but why should my life be endangered?”
He was real. He wasn’t a ghost. But he had heard everything!
“Sir, you should have made known your presence.”
“Indeed?” His white teeth gleamed and his bold dark eyes laughed at her.
Her temper was beginning to rise again at the thought that this rude and impertinent man had heard everything – heard things she now wished she had never uttered.
“Eavesdroppers —” she began furiously.
“Eavesdroppers often hear very entertaining and instructive things,” he grinned.
“Sir,” she said, “you are no gentleman!”
“A true observation,” he answered airily. “And, you, Miss, are no lady.” He seemed to find her very amusing, for he laughed softly again. “No one can remain a lady after saying and doing what I have just overheard. However, ladies have seldom held any charms for me. I know what they are thinking, but they never have the courage to say what they think. But you, my dear Miss O’Hara, are a girl of rare spirit, and I take off my hat to you. I can’t understand what charms the elegant Mr. Wilkes can hold for a girl of your nature. He should thank God for a girl with your – how did he put it? – ‘passion for living,’ but being a poor-spirited wretch —”
“You aren’t fit to wipe his boots!” she shouted in rage.
He sank down on the sofa and she heard him laughing.
If she could have killed him, she would have done it. Instead, she walked out of the room with dignity and banged the heavy door behind her.
She went up the stairs so swiftly that when she reached the landing, she thought she was going to faint.
She tried to quiet her heart, for she knew she must look like a crazy woman. If any of the girls were awake, they’d know something was wrong. And no one must ever, ever know that anything had happened.
Through the wide window she could see the men still lounging in their chairs under the trees. As she stood watching them, she heard the rapid pounding of a horse’s hooves on the front drive and a man on horseback galloped over the green lawn toward the group under the trees.
She could not recognize him, but the crowd gathered around him. In spite of the distance, she could