[Part 25] "Gone With The Wind" by Margaret Mitchell

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐈𝐈.

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IT WAS ASHLEY’S BIRTHDAY and Melanie was giving him a surprise reception that night.

Everyone knew about the reception, except Ashley.

Even Wade and little Beau knew and were sworn to a secrecy that puffed them up with pride.

Everyone in Atlanta who was nice had been invited and was coming.

General Gordon and his family had graciously accepted, Alexander Stephens would be present if his ever-uncertain health permitted and even Bob Toombs, the stormy petrel of the Confederacy, was expected.

All that morning, Scarlett, with Melanie, India and Aunt Pitty, flew about the little house, directing the negroes as they hung freshly laundered curtains, polished silver, waxed the floor and cooked, stirred and tasted the refreshments.

Scarlett had never seen Melanie so excited or so happy.

“You see, dear, Ashley hasn’t had a birthday party since—since, you remember the barbecue at Twelve Oaks?

The day we heard about Mr. Lincoln’s call for volunteers?

Well, he hasn’t had a birthday party since then.

And he works so hard and he’s so tired when he gets home at night that he really hasn’t thought about today being his birthday.

And won’t he be surprised after supper when everybody troops in!”

“How you goin’ to manage them lanterns on the lawn without Mr. Wilkes seein’ them when he comes home to supper?” demanded Archie grumpily.

He had sat all morning watching the preparations, interested but unwilling to admit it.

He had never been behind the scenes at a large town folks’ party and it was a new experience.

He made frank remarks about women running around like the house was afire, just because they were having company, but wild horses could not have dragged him from the scene.

The colored-paper lanterns which Mrs. Elsing and Fanny had made and painted for the occasion held a special interest for him, as he had never seen “sech contraptions” before.

They had been hidden in his room in the cellar and he had examined them minutely.

“Mercy!

I hadn’t thought of that!” cried Melanie.

“Archie, how fortunate that you mentioned it.

Dear, dear!

What shall I do?

They’ve got to be strung on the bushes and trees and little candles put in them and lighted just at the proper time when the guests are arriving.

Scarlett, can you send Pork down to do it while we’re eating supper?”

“Miz Wilkes, you got more sense than most women but you gits flurried right easy,” said Archie.

“And as for that fool nigger, Pork, he ain’t got no bizness with them thar contraptions.

He’d set them afire in no time.

They are—right pretty,” he conceded.

“I’ll hang them for you, whilst you and Mr. Wilkes are eatin’.”

“Oh, Archie, how kind of you!” Melanie turned childlike eyes of gratitude and dependence upon him.

“I don’t know what I should do without you.

Do you suppose you could go put the candles in them now, so we’d have that much out of the way?”

“Well, I could, p’raps,” said Archie ungraciously and stumped off toward the cellar stairs.

“There’s more ways of killing a cat than choking him to death with butter,” giggled Melanie when the whiskered old man had thumped down the stairs.

“I had intended all along for Archie to put up those lanterns but you know how he is.

He won’t do a thing if you ask him to.

And now we’ve got him out from underfoot for a while.

The darkies are so scared of him they just won’t do any work when he’s around, breathing down their necks.”

“Melly, I wouldn’t have that old desperado in my house,” said Scarlett crossly.

She hated Archie as much as he hated her and they barely spoke.

Melanie’s was the only house in which he would remain if she were present.

And even in Melanie’s house, he stared at her with suspicion and cold contempt.

“He’ll cause you trouble, mark my words.”

“Oh, he’s harmless if you flatter him and act like you depend on him,” said Melanie.

“And he’s so devoted to Ashley and Beau that I always feel safe having him around.”

“You mean he’s so devoted to you, Melly,” said India, her cold face relaxing into a faintly warm smile as her gaze rested fondly on her sister-in-law.

“I believe you’re the first person that old ruffian has loved since his wife—er—since his wife.

I think he’d really like for somebody to insult you, so he could kill them to show his respect for you.”

“Mercy!

How you run on, India!” said Melanie blushing.

“He thinks I’m a terrible goose and you know it.”

“Well, I don’t see that what that smelly old hill-billy thinks is of any importance,” said Scarlett abruptly.

The very thought of how Archie had sat in judgment upon her about the convicts always enraged her.

“I have to go now.

I’ve got to go get dinner and then go by the store and pay off the clerks and go by the lumber yard and pay the drivers and Hugh Elsing.”

“Oh, are you going to the lumber yard?” asked Melanie.

“Ashley is coming into the yard in the late afternoon to see Hugh.

Can you possibly hold him there till five o’clock?

If he comes home earlier he’ll be sure to catch us finishing up a cake or something and then he won’t be surprised at all.”

Scarlett smiled inwardly, good temper restored.

“Yes, I’ll hold him,” she said.

As she spoke, India’s pale lashless eyes met hers piercingly.

“She always looks at me so oddly when I speak of Ashley,” thought Scarlett.

“Well, hold him there as long as you can after five o’clock,” said Melanie.

“And then India will drive down and pick him up…. Scarlett, do come early tonight.

I don’t want you to miss a minute of the reception.”

As Scarlett rode home she thought sullenly: “She doesn’t want me to miss a minute of the reception, eh?

Well then, why didn’t she invite me to receive with her and India and Aunt Pitty?”

Generally, Scarlett would not have cared whether she received at Melly’s piddling parties or not.

But this was the largest party Melanie had ever given and Ashley’s birthday party too, and Scarlett longed to stand by Ashley’s side and receive with him.

But she knew why she had not been invited to receive.

Even had she not known it, Rhett’s comment on the subject had been frank enough.

“A Scallawag receive when all the prominent ex-Confederates and Democrats are going to be there?

Your notions are as enchanting as they are muddle headed.

It’s only because of Miss Melly’s loyalty that you are invited at all.”

Scarlett dressed with more than usual care that afternoon for her trip to the store and the lumber yard, wearing the new dull-green changeable taffeta frock that looked lilac in some lights and the new pale-green bonnet, circled about with dark-green plumes.

If only Rhett would let her cut bangs and frizzle them on her forehead, how much better this bonnet would look!

But he had declared that he would shave her whole head if she banged her forelocks.

And these days he acted so atrociously he really might do it.

It was a lovely afternoon, sunny but not too hot, bright but not glaring, and the warm breeze that rustled the trees along Peachtree Street made the plumes on Scarlett’s bonnet dance.

Her heart danced too, as always when she was going to see Ashley.

Perhaps, if she paid off the team drivers and Hugh early, they would go home and leave her and Ashley alone in the square little office in the middle of the lumber yard.

Chances to see Ashley alone were all too infrequent these days.

And to think that Melanie had asked her to hold him!

That was funny!

Her heart was merry when she reached the store, and she paid off Willie and the other counter boys without even asking what the day’s business had been.

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It was Saturday, the biggest day of the week for the store, for all the farmers came to town to shop that day, but she asked no questions.

Along the way to the lumber yard she stopped a dozen times to speak with Carpetbagger ladies in splendid equipages—not so splendid as her own, she thought with pleasure—and with many men who came through the red dust of the street to stand hat in hand and compliment her.

It was a beautiful afternoon, she was happy, she looked pretty and her progress was a royal one.

Because of these delays she arrived at the lumber yard later than she intended and found Hugh and the team drivers sitting on a low pile of lumber waiting for her.

“Is Ashley here?”

“Yes, he’s in the office,” said Hugh, the habitually worried expression leaving his face at the sight of her happy, dancing eyes.

“He’s trying to— I mean, he’s going over the books.”

“Oh, he needn’t bother about that today,” she said and then lowering her voice: “Melly sent me down to keep him here till they get the house straight for the reception tonight.”

Hugh smiled for he was going to the reception.

He liked parties and he guessed Scarlett did too from the way she looked this afternoon.

She paid off the teamsters and Hugh and, abruptly leaving them, walked toward the office, showing plainly by her manner that she did not care to be accompanied.

Ashley met her at the door and stood in the afternoon sunshine, his hair bright and on his lips a little smile that was almost a grin.

“Why, Scarlett, what are you doing downtown this time of the day?

Why aren’t you out at my house helping Melly get ready for the surprise party?”

“Why, Ashley Wilkes!” she cried indignantly.

“You weren’t supposed to know a thing about it.

Melly will be so disappointed if you aren’t surprised.”

“Oh, I won’t let on.

I’ll be the most surprised man in Atlanta,” said Ashley, his eyes laughing.

“Now, who was mean enough to tell you?”

“Practically every man Melly invited.

General Gordon was the first.

He said it had been his experience that when women gave surprise parties they usually gave them on the very nights men had decided to polish and clean all the guns in the house.

And then Grandpa Merriwether warned me.

He said Mrs. Merriwether gave him a surprise party once and she was the most surprised person there, because Grandpa had been treating his rheumatism, on the sly, with a bottle of whisky and he was too drunk to get out of bed and—oh, every man who’s ever had a surprise party given him told me.”

“The mean things!” cried Scarlett but she had to smile.

He looked like the old Ashley she knew at Twelve Oaks when he smiled like this.

And he smiled so seldom these days.

The air was so soft, the sun so gentle, Ashley’s face so gay, his talk so unconstrained that her heart leaped with happiness.

It swelled in her bosom until it positively ached with pleasure, ached as with a burden of joyful, hot, unshed tears.

Suddenly she felt sixteen again and happy, a little breathless and excited.

She had a mad impulse to snatch off her bonnet and toss it into the air and cry “Hurray!”

Then she thought how startled Ashley would be if she did this, and she suddenly laughed, laughed until tears came to her eyes.

He laughed, too, throwing back his head as though he enjoyed laughter, thinking her mirth came from the friendly treachery of the men who had given Melly’s secret away.

“Come in, Scarlett.

I’m going over the books.”

She passed into the small room, blazing with the afternoon sun, and sat down in the chair before the roll-topped desk.

Ashley, following her, seated himself on the corner of the rough table, his long legs dangling easily.

“Oh, don’t let’s fool with any books this afternoon, Ashley!

I just can’t be bothered.

When I’m wearing a new bonnet, it seems like all the figures I know leave my head.”

“Figures are well lost when the bonnet’s as pretty as that one,” he said.

“Scarlett, you get prettier all the time!”

He slipped from the table and, laughing, took her hands, spreading them wide so he could see her dress.

“You are so pretty!

I don’t believe you’ll ever get old!”

At his touch she realized that, without being conscious of it, she had hoped that just this thing would happen.

All this happy afternoon, she had hoped for the warmth of his hands, the tenderness of his eyes, a word that would show he cared.

This was the first time they had been utterly alone since the cold day in the orchard at Tara, the first time their hands had met in any but formal gestures, and through the long months she had hungered for closer contact.

But now—

How odd that the touch of his hands did not excite her!

Once his very nearness would have set her a-tremble.

Now she felt only a curious warm friendliness and content.

No fever leaped from his hands to hers and in his hands her heart hushed to happy quietness.

This puzzled her, made her a little disconcerted.

He was still her Ashley, still her bright, shining darling and she loved him better than life.

Then why—

But she pushed the thought from her mind.

It was enough that she was with him and he was holding her hands and smiling, completely friendly, without strain or fever.

It seemed miraculous that this could be when she thought of all the unsaid things that lay between them.

His eyes looked into hers, clear and shining, smiling in the old way she loved, smiling as though there had never been anything between them but happiness.

There was no barrier between his eyes and hers now, no baffling remoteness.

She laughed.

“Oh, Ashley, I’m getting old and decrepit.”

“Ah, that’s very apparent!

No, Scarlett, when you are sixty, you’ll look the same to me.

I’ll always remember you as you were that day of our last barbecue, sitting under an oak with a dozen boys around you.

I can even tell you just how you were dressed, in a white dress covered with tiny green flowers and a white lace shawl about your shoulders.

You had on little green slippers with black lacings and an enormous leghorn hat with long green streamers.

I know that dress by heart because when I was in prison and things got too bad, I’d take out my memories and thumb them over like pictures, recalling every little detail—”

He stopped abruptly and the eager light faded from his face.

He dropped her hands gently and she sat waiting, waiting for his next words.

“We’ve come a long way, both of us, since that day, haven’t we, Scarlett?

We’ve traveled roads we never expected to travel.

You’ve come swiftly, directly, and I, slowly and reluctantly.”

He sat down on the table again and looked at her and a small smile crept back into his face.

But it was not the smile that had made her so happy so short a while before.

It was a bleak smile.

“Yes, you came swiftly, dragging me at your chariot wheels.

Scarlett, sometimes I have an impersonal curiosity as to what would have happened to me without you.”

Scarlett went quickly to defend him from himself, more quickly because treacherously there rose to her mind Rhett’s words on this same subject.

“But I’ve never done anything for you, Ashley.

Without me, you’d have been just the same.

Some day, you’d have been a rich man, a great man like you are going to be.”

“No, Scarlett, the seeds of greatness were never in me.

I think that if it hadn’t been for you, I’d have gone down into oblivion—like poor Cathleen Calvert and so many other people who once had great names, old names.”

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“Oh, Ashley, don’t talk like that.

You sound so sad.”

“No, I’m not sad.

Not any longer.

Once—once I was sad.

Now, I’m only—”

He stopped and suddenly she knew what he was thinking.

It was the first time she had ever known what Ashley was thinking when his eyes went past her, crystal clear, absent.

When the fury of love had beaten in her heart, his mind had been closed to her.

Now, in the quiet friendliness that lay between them, she could walk a little way into his mind, understand a little.

He was not sad any longer.

He had been sad after the surrender, sad when she begged him to come to Atlanta.

Now, he was only resigned.

“I hate to hear you talk like that, Ashley,” she said vehemently.

“You sound just like Rhett.

He’s always harping on things like that and something he calls the survival of the fitting till I’m so bored I could scream.”

Ashley smiled.

“Did you ever stop to think, Scarlett, that Rhett and I are fundamentally alike?”

“Oh, no!

You are so fine, so honorable and he—”

She broke off, confused.

“But we are.

We came of the same kind of people, we were raised in the same pattern, brought up to think the same things.

And somewhere along the road we took different turnings.

We still think alike but we react differently.

As, for instance, neither of us believed in war but I enlisted and fought and he stayed out till nearly the end.

We both knew the war was all wrong.

We both knew it was a losing fight.

I was willing to fight a losing fight.

He wasn’t.

Sometimes I think he was right and then, again—”

“Oh, Ashley, when will you stop seeing both sides of questions?” she asked.

But she did not speak impatiently as she once would have done.

“No one ever gets anywhere seeing both sides.”

“That’s true but—Scarlett, just where do you want to get?

I’ve often wondered.

You see, I never wanted to get anywhere at all.

I’ve only wanted to be myself.”

Where did she want to get?

That was a silly question.

Money and security, of course.

And yet—

Her mind fumbled.

She had money and as much security as one could hope for in an insecure world.

But, now that she thought about it, they weren’t quite enough.

Now that she thought about it, they hadn’t made her particularly happy, though they had made her less harried, less fearful of the morrow.

“If I’d had money and security and you, that would have been where I wanted to get,” she thought, looking at him yearningly.

But she did not speak the words, fearful of breaking the spell that lay between them, fearful that his mind would close against her.

“You only want to be yourself?” she laughed, a little ruefully.

“Not being myself has always been my hardest trouble!

As to where I want to go, well, I guess I’ve gotten there.

I wanted to be rich and safe and—”

“But, Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that I don’t care whether I’m rich or not?”

No, it had never occurred to her that anyone would not want to be rich.

“Then, what do you want?”

“I don’t know, now.

I knew once but I’ve half forgotten.

Mostly to be left alone, not to be harried by people I don’t like, driven to do things I don’t want to do.

Perhaps—I want the old days back again and they’ll never come back, and I am haunted by the memory of them and of the world falling about my ears.”

Scarlett set her mouth obstinately.

It was not that she did not know what he meant.

The very tones of his voice called up other days as nothing else could, made her heart hurt suddenly, as she too remembered.

But since the day she had lain sick and desolate in the garden at Twelve Oaks and said: “I won’t look back,” she had set her face against the past.

“I like these days better,” she said.

But she did not meet his eyes as she spoke.

“There’s always something exciting happening now, parties and so on.

Everything’s got a glitter to it.

The old days were so dull.”

(Oh, lazy days and warm still country twilights!

The high soft laughter from the quarters!

The golden warmth life had then and the comforting knowledge of what all tomorrows would bring!

How can I deny you?)

“I like these days better,” she said but her voice was tremulous.

He slipped from the table, laughing softly in unbelief.

Putting his hand under her chin, he turned her face up to his.

“Ah, Scarlett, what a poor liar you are!

Yes, life has a glitter now—of a sort.

That’s what’s wrong with it.

The old days had no glitter but they had a charm, a beauty, a slow-paced glamor.”

Her mind pulled two ways, she dropped her eyes.

The sound of his voice, the touch of his hand were softly un-locking doors that she had locked forever.

Behind those doors lay the beauty of the old days, and a sad hunger for them welled up within her.

But she knew that no matter what beauty lay behind, it must remain there.

No one could go forward with a load of aching memories.

His hand dropped from her chin and he took one of her hands between his two and held it gently.

“Do you remember,” he said—and a warning bell in her mind rang: Don’t look back!

Don’t look back!

But she swiftly disregarded it, swept forward on a tide of happiness.

At last she was understanding him, at last their minds had met.

This moment was too precious to be lost, no matter what pain came after.

“Do you remember,” he said and under the spell of his voice the bare walls of the little office faded and the years rolled aside and they were riding country bridle paths together in a long-gone spring.

As he spoke his light grip tightened on her hand and in his voice was the sad magic of old half-forgotten songs.

She could hear the gay jingle of bridle bits as they rode under the dogwood trees to the Tarletons’ picnic, hear her own careless laughter, see the sun glinting on his silver-gilt hair and note the proud easy grace with which he sat his horse.

There was music in his voice, the music of fiddles and banjos to which they had danced in the white house that was no more.

There was the far-off yelping of possum dogs in the dark swamp under cool autumn moons and the smell of eggnog bowls, wreathed with holly at Christmas time and smiles on black and white faces.

And old friends came trooping back, laughing as though they had not been dead these many years: Stuart and Brent with their long legs and their red hair and their practical jokes, Tom and Boyd as wild as young horses, Joe Fontaine with his hot black eyes, and Cade and Raiford Calvert who moved with such languid grace.

There was John Wilkes, too; and Gerald, red with brandy; and a whisper and a fragrance that was Ellen.

Over it all rested a sense of security, a knowledge that tomorrow could only bring the same happiness today had brought.

His voice stopped and they looked for a long quiet moment into each other’s eyes and between them lay the sunny lost youth that they had so unthinkingly shared.

“Now I know why you can’t be happy,” she thought sadly.

“I never understood you before.

I never understood why I wasn’t altogether happy either.

But—why, we are talking like old people talk!” she thought with dreary surprise.

“Old people looking back fifty years.

And we’re not old!

It’s just that so much has happened in between.

Everything’s changed so much that it seems like fifty years ago.

But we’re not old!”

But when she looked at Ashley he was no longer young and shining.

His head was bowed as he looked down absently at her hand which he still held and she saw that his once bright hair was very gray, silver gray as moonlight on still water.

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Somehow the bright beauty had gone from the April afternoon and from her heart as well and the sad sweetness of remembering was as bitter as gall.

“I shouldn’t have let him make me look back,” she thought despairingly.

“I was right when I said I’d never look back.

It hurts too much, it drags at your heart till you can’t ever do anything else except look back.

That’s what’s wrong with Ashley.

He can’t look forward any more.

He can’t see the present, he fears the future, and so he looks back.

I never understood it before.

I never understood Ashley before.

Oh, Ashley, my darling, you shouldn’t look back!

What good will it do?

I shouldn’t have let you tempt me into talking of the old days.

This is what happens when you look back to happiness, this pain, this heartbreak, this discontent.”

She rose to her feet, her hand still in his.

She must go.

She could not stay and think of the old days and see his face, tired and sad and bleak as it now was.

“We’ve come a long way since those days, Ashley,” she said, trying to steady her voice, trying to fight the constriction in her throat.

“We had fine notions then, didn’t we?”

And then, with a rush, “Oh, Ashley, nothing has turned out as we expected!”

“It never does,” he said.

“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.

We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”

Her heart was suddenly dull with pain, with weariness, as she thought of the long road she had come since those days.

There rose up in her mind the memory of Scarlet O’Hara who loved beaux and pretty dresses and who intended, some day, when she had the time, to be a great lady like Ellen.

Without warning, tears started in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks and she stood looking at him dumbly, like a hurt bewildered child.

He said no word but took her gently in his arms, pressed her head against his shoulder and, leaning down, laid his cheek against hers.

She relaxed against him and her arms went round his body.

The comfort of his arms helped dry her sudden tears.

Ah, it was good to be in his arms, without passion, without tenseness, to be there as a loved friend.

Only Ashley who shared her memories and her youth, who knew her beginnings and her present could understand.

She heard the sound of feet outside but paid little heed, thinking it was the teamsters going home.

She stood for a moment, listening to the slow beat of Ashley’s heart.

Then suddenly he wrenched himself from her, confusing her by his violence.

She looked up into his face in surprise but he was not looking at her.

He was looking over her shoulder at the door.

She turned and there stood India, white faced, her pale eyes blazing, and Archie, malevolent as a one-eyed parrot.

Behind them stood Mrs. Elsing.

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How she got out of the office she never remembered.

But she went instantly, swiftly, by Ashley’s order, leaving Ashley and Archie in grim converse in the little room and India and Mrs. Elsing outside with their backs to her.

Shame and fear sped her homeward and, in her mind, Archie with his patriarch’s beard assumed the proportions of an avenging angel straight from the pages of the Old Testament.

The house was empty and still in the April sunset.

All the servants had gone to a funeral and the children were playing in Melanie’s back yard.

Melanie—

Melanie!

Scarlett went cold at the thought of her as she climbed the stairs to her room.

Melanie would hear of this.

India had said she would tell her.

Oh, India would glory in telling her, not caring if she blackened Ashley’s name, not caring if she hurt Melanie, if by so doing she could injure Scarlett!

And Mrs. Elsing would talk too, even though she had really seen nothing, because she was behind India and Archie in the door of the lumber office.

But she would talk, just the same.

The news would be all over town by supper time.

Everyone, even the negroes, would know by tomorrow’s breakfast.

At the party tonight, women would gather in corners and whisper discreetly and with malicious pleasure.

Scarlett Butler tumbled from her high and mighty place!

And the story would grow and grow.

There was no way of stopping it.

It wouldn’t stop at the bare facts, that Ashley was holding her in his arms while she cried.

Before nightfall people would be saying she had been taken in adultery.

And it had been so innocent, so sweet!

Scarlett thought wildly: If we had been caught that Christmas of his furlough when I kissed him good-by—if we had been caught in the orchard at Tara when I begged him to run away with me—oh, if we’d been caught any of the times when we were really guilty, it wouldn’t be so bad!

But now!

Now!

When I went to his arms as a friend—

But no one would believe that.

She wouldn’t have a single friend to take her part, not a single voice would be raised to say: “I don’t believe she was doing anything wrong.”

She had outraged old friends too long to find a champion among them now.

Her new friends, suffering in silence under her insolences, would welcome a chance to blackguard her.

No, everybody would believe anything about her, though they might regret that so fine a man as Ashley Wilkes was mixed up in so dirty an affair.

As usual they would cast the blame upon the woman and shrug at the man’s guilt.

And in this case they would be right.

She had gone into his arms.

Oh, she could stand the cuts, the slights, the covert smiles, anything the town might say, if she had to stand them—but not Melanie!

Oh, not Melanie!

She did not know why she should mind Melanie knowing, more than anyone else.

She was too frightened and weighed down by a sense of past guilt to try to understand it.

But she burst into tears at the thought of what would be in Melanie’s eyes when India told her that she had caught Ashley fondling Scarlett.

And what would Melanie do when she knew?

Leave Ashley?

What else could she do, with any dignity?

And what will Ashley and I do then? she thought frenziedly, the tears streaming down her face.

Oh, Ashley will die of shame and hate me for bringing this on him.

Suddenly her tears stopped short as a deadly fear went through her heart.

What of Rhett?

What would he do?

Perhaps he’d never know.

What was that old saying, that cynical saying?

“The husband is always the last to find out.”

Perhaps no one would tell him.

It would take a brave man to break such news to Rhett, for Rhett had the reputation for shooting first and asking questions afterwards.

Please, God, don’t let anybody be brave enough to tell him!

But she remembered the face of Archie in the lumber office, the cold, pale eye, remorseless, full of hate for her and all women.

Archie feared neither God nor man and he hated loose women.

He had hated them enough to kill one.

And he had said he would tell Rhett.

And he’d tell him in spite of all Ashley could do to dissuade him.

Unless Ashley killed him, Archie would tell Rhett, feeling it his Christian duty.

She pulled off her clothes and lay down on the bed, her mind whirling round and round.

If she could only lock her door and stay in this safe place forever and ever and never see anyone again.

Perhaps Rhett wouldn’t find out tonight.

She’d say she had a headache and didn’t feel like going to the reception.

By morning she would have thought up some excuse to offer, some defense that might hold water.

“I won’t think of it now,” she said desperately, burying her face in the pillow.

“I won’t think of it now.

I’ll think of it later when I can stand it.”

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She heard the servants come back as night fell and it seemed to her that they were very silent as they moved about preparing supper.

Or was it her guilty conscience?

Mammy came to the door and knocked but Scarlett sent her away, saying she did not want any supper.

Time passed and finally she heard Rhett coming up the steps.

She held herself tensely as he reached the upper hall, gathered all her strength for a meeting but he passed into his room.

She breathed easier.

He hadn’t heard.

Thank God, he still respected her icy request that he never put foot in her bedroom again, for if he saw her now, her face would give her away.

She must gather herself together enough to tell him that she felt too ill to go to the reception.

Well, there was time enough for her to calm herself.

Or was there time?

Since the awful moment that afternoon, life had seemed timeless.

She heard Rhett moving about in his room for a long time, speaking occasionally to Pork.

Still she could not find courage to call to him.

She lay still on the bed in the darkness, shaking.

After a long time, he knocked on her door and she said, trying to control her voice: “Come in.”

“Am I actually being invited into the sanctuary?” he questioned, opening the door.

It was dark and she could not see his face.

Nor could she make anything of his voice.

He entered and closed the door.

“Are you ready for the reception?”

“I’m so sorry but I have a headache.”

How odd that her voice sounded natural!

Thank God for the dark!

“I don’t believe I’ll go.

You go, Rhett, and give Melanie my regrets.”

There was a long pause and he spoke drawlingly, bitingly in the dark.

“What a white livered, cowardly little bitch you are.”

He knew!

She lay shaking, unable to speak.

She heard him fumble in the dark, strike a match and the room sprang into light.

He walked over to the bed and looked down at her.

She saw that he was in evening clothes.

“Get up,” he said and there was nothing in his voice.

“We are going to the reception.

You will have to hurry.”

“Oh, Rhett, I can’t.

You see—”

“I can see.

Get up.”

“Rhett, did Archie dare—”

“Archie dared.

A very brave man, Archie.”

“You should have killed him for telling lies—”

“I have a strange way of not killing people who tell the truth.

There’s no time to argue now.

Get up.”

She sat up, hugging her wrapper close to her, her eyes searching his face.

It was dark and impassive.

“I won’t go, Rhett.

I can’t until this—misunderstanding is cleared up.”

“If you don’t show your face tonight, you’ll never be able to show it in this town as long as you live.

And while I may endure a trollop for a wife, I won’t endure a coward.

You are going tonight, even if everyone, from Alex Stephens down, cuts you and Mrs. Wilkes asks us to leave the house.”

“Rhett, let me explain.”

“I don’t want to hear.

There isn’t time.

Get on your clothes.”

“They misunderstood—India and Mrs. Elsing and Archie.

And they hate me so.

India hates me so much that she’d even tell lies about her own brother to make me appear in a bad light.

If you’ll only let me explain—”

“Oh, Mother of God,” she thought in agony, “suppose he says: ‘Pray do explain!’

What can I say?

How can I explain?”

“They’ll have told everybody lies.

I can’t go tonight.”

“You will go,” he said, “if I have to drag you by the neck and plant my boot on your ever so charming bottom every step of the way.”

There was a cold glitter in his eyes as he jerked her to her feet.

He picked up her stays and threw them at her.

“Put them on.

I’ll lace you.

Oh yes, I know all about lacing.

No, I won’t call Mammy to help you and have you lock the door and skulk here like the coward you are.”

“I’m not a coward,” she cried, stung out of her fear.

“I—”

“Oh, spare me your saga about shooting Yankees and facing Sherman’s army.

You’re a coward—among other things.

If not for your own sake, you are going tonight for Bonnie’s sake.

How could you further ruin her chances?

Put on your stays, quick.”

Hastily she slipped off her wrapper and stood clad only in her chemise.

If only he would look at her and see how nice she looked in her chemise, perhaps that frightening look would leave his face.

After all, he hadn’t seen her in her chemise for ever and ever so long.

But he did not look.

He was in her closet, going through her dresses swiftly.

He fumbled and drew out her new jade-green watered-silk dress.

It was cut low over the bosom and the skirt was draped back over an enormous bustle and on the bustle was a huge bunch of pink velvet roses.

“Wear that,” he said, tossing it on the bed and coming toward her.

“No modest, matronly dove grays and lilacs tonight.

Your flag must be nailed to the mast, for obviously you’d run it down if it wasn’t.

And plenty of rouge.

I’m sure the woman the Pharisees took in adultery didn’t look half so pale.

Turn around.”

He took the strings of the stays in his hands and jerked them so hard that she cried out, frightened, humiliated, embarrassed at such an untoward performance.

“Hurts, does it?”

He laughed shortly and she could not see his face.

“Pity it isn’t around your neck.”

Melanie’s house blazed lights from every room and they could hear the music far up the street.

As they drew up in front, the pleasant exciting sounds of many people enjoying themselves floated out.

The house was packed with guests.

They overflowed on verandas and many were sitting on the benches in the dim lantern-hung yard.

“I can’t go in—I can’t,” thought Scarlett, sitting in the carriage, gripping her balled-up handkerchief.

“I can’t. I won’t. I will jump out and run away, somewhere, back home to Tara.

Why did Rhett force me to come here?

What will people do?

What will Melanie do?

What will she look like?

Oh, I can’t face her.

I will run away.”

As though he read her mind, Rhett’s hand closed upon her arm in a grip that would leave a bruise, the rough grip of a careless stranger.

“I’ve never known an Irishman to be a coward.

Where’s your much-vaunted courage?”

“Rhett, do please, let me go home and explain.”

“You have eternity in which to explain and only one night to be a martyr in the amphitheater.

Get out, darling, and let me see the lions eat you.

Get out.”

She went up the walk somehow, the arm she was holding as hard and steady as granite, communicating to her some courage.

By God, she could face them and she would.

What were they but a bunch of howling, clawing cats who were jealous of her?

She’d show them.

She didn’t care what they thought.

Only Melanie—only Melanie.

They were on the porch and Rhett was bowing right and left, his hat in his hand, his voice cool and soft.

The music stopped as they entered and the crowd of people seemed to her confused mind to surge up to her like the roar of the sea and then ebb away, with lessening, ever-lessening sound.

Was everyone going to cut her?

Well, God’s nightgown, let them do it!

Her chin went up and she smiled, the corners of her eyes crinkling.

Before she could turn to speak to those nearest the door, someone came through the press of people.

There was an odd hush that caught at Scarlett’s heart.

Then through the lane came Melanie on small feet that hurried, hurried to meet Scarlett at the door, to speak to her before anyone else could speak.

Her narrow shoulders were squared and her small jaw set indignantly and, for all her notice, she might have had no other guest but Scarlett.

She went to her side and slipped an arm about her waist.

“What a lovely dress, darling,” she said in her small, clear voice. “Will you be an angel?

India was unable to come tonight and assist me.

Will you receive with me?”

----------------------------------------------------------

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐈𝐕.

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SAFE IN HER ROOM AGAIN, Scarlett fell on the bed, careless of her moiré dress, bustle and roses.

For a time she could only lie still and think of standing between Melanie and Ashley, greeting guests.

What a horror!

She would face Sherman’s army again rather than repeat that performance!

After a time, she rose from the bed and nervously paced the floor, shedding garments as she walked.

Reaction from strain set in and she began to shake.

Hairpins slipped out of her fingers and tinkled to the floor and when she tried to give her hair its customary hundred strokes, she banged the back of the brush hurtingly against her temple.

A dozen times she tiptoed to the door to listen for noises downstairs but the hall below lay like a black silent pit.

Rhett had sent her home alone in the carriage when the party was over and she had thanked God for the reprieve.

He had not come in yet.

Thank God, he had not come in.

She could not face him tonight, shamed, frightened, shaking.

But where was he?

Probably at that creature’s place.

For the first time, Scarlett was glad there was such a person as Belle Watling.

Glad there was some other place than this house to shelter Rhett until his glittering, murderous mood had passed.

That was wrong, being glad a husband was at the house of a prostitute, but she could not help it.

She would be almost glad if he were dead, if it meant she would not have to see him tonight.

Tomorrow—well, tomorrow was another day.

Tomorrow she would think of some excuse, some counter accusations, some way of putting Rhett in the wrong.

Tomorrow the memory of this hideous night would not be driving her so fiercely that she shook.

Tomorrow she would not be so haunted by the memory of Ashley’s face, his broken pride and his shame—shame that she had caused, shame in which he had so little part.

Would he hate her now, her darling, honorable Ashley, because she had shamed him?

Of course he would hate her now—now that they had both been saved by the indignant squaring of Melanie’s thin shoulders and the love and outspoken trust which had been in her voice as she crossed the glassy floor to slip her arm through Scarlett’s and face the curious, malicious, covertly hostile crowd.

How neatly Melanie had scotched the scandal, keeping Scarlett at her side all through the dreadful evening!

People had been a bit cool, somewhat bewildered, but they had been polite.

Oh, the ignominy of it all, to be sheltered behind Melanie’s skirts from those who hated her, who would have torn her to bits with their whispers!

To be sheltered by Melanie’s blind trust, Melanie of all people!

Scarlett shook as with a chill at the thought.

She must have a drink, a number of drinks before she could lie down and hope to sleep.

She threw a wrapper about her gown and went hastily out into the dark hall, her backless slippers making a great clatter in the stillness.

She was halfway down the stairs before she looked toward the closed door of the dining room and saw a narrow line of light streaming from under it.

Her heart stopped for a moment.

Had that light been burning when she came home and had she been too upset to notice it?

Or was Rhett home after all?

He could have come in quietly through the kitchen door.

If Rhett were home, she would tiptoe back to bed without her brandy, much as she needed it.

Then she wouldn’t have to face him.

Once in her room she would be safe, for she could lock the door.

She was leaning over to pluck off her slippers, so she might hurry back in silence, when the dining-room door swung open abruptly and Rhett stood silhouetted against the dim candlelight behind him.

He looked huge, larger than she had ever seen him, a terrifying faceless black bulk that swayed slightly on its feet.

“Pray join me, Mrs. Butler,” he said and his voice was a little thick.

He was drunk and showing it and she had never before seen him show his liquor, no matter how much he drank.

She paused irresolutely, saying nothing and his arm went up in a gesture of command.

“Come here, damn you!” he said roughly.

He must be very drunk, she thought with a fluttering heart.

Usually, the more he drank, the more polished became his manners.

He sneered more, his words were apt to be more biting, but the manner that accompanied them was always punctilious—too punctilious.

“I must never let him know I’m afraid to face him,” she thought, and, clutching the wrapper closer to her throat, she went down the stairs with her head up and her heels clacking noisily.

He stood aside and bowed her through the door with a mockery that made her wince.

She saw that he was coatless and his cravat hung down on either side of his open collar.

His shirt was open down to the thick mat of black hair on his chest.

His hair was rumpled and his eyes bloodshot and narrow.

One candle burned on the table, a tiny spark of light that threw monstrous shadows about the high-ceilinged room and made the massive sideboards and buffet look like still, crouching beasts.

On the table on the silver tray stood the decanter with cut-glass stopper out, surrounded by glasses.

“Sit down,” he said curtly, following her into the room.

Now a new kind of fear crept into her, a fear that made her alarm at facing him seem very small.

He looked and talked and acted like a stranger.

This was an ill-mannered Rhett she had never seen before.

Never at any time, even in the most intimate moments, had he been other than nonchalant.

Even in anger, he was suave and satirical, and whisky usually served to intensify these qualities.

At first it had annoyed her and she had tried to break that nonchalance but soon she had come to accept it as a very convenient thing.

For years she had thought that nothing mattered very much to him, that he thought everything in life, including her, an ironic joke.

But as she faced him across the table, she knew with a sinking feeling in her stomach that at last something was mattering to him, mattering very much.

“There is no reason why you should not have your nightcap, even if I am ill bred enough to be at home,” he said.

“Shall I pour it for you?”

“I did not want a drink,” she said stiffly.

“I heard a noise and came—”

“You heard nothing.

You wouldn’t have come down if you’d thought I was home.

I’ve sat here and listened to you racing up and down the floor upstairs.

You must need a drink badly.

Take it.”

“I do not—”

He picked up the decanter and sloshed a glassful, untidily.

“Take it,” he said, shoving it into her hand.

“You are shaking all over.

Oh, don’t give yourself airs.

I know you drink on the quiet and I know how much you drink.

For some time I’ve been intending to tell you to stop your elaborate pretenses and drink openly if you want to.

Do you think I give a damn if you like your brandy?”

She took the wet glass, silently cursing him.

He read her like a book.

He had always read her and he was the one man in the world from whom she would like to hide her real thoughts.

“Drink it, I say.”

She raised the glass and bolted the contents with one abrupt motion of her arm, wrist stiff, just as Gerald had always taken his neat whisky, bolted it before she thought how practiced and unbecoming it looked.

He did not miss the gesture and his mouth went down at the corner.

“Sit down and we will have a pleasant domestic discussion of the elegant reception we have just attended.”

“You are drunk,” she said coldly, “and I am going to bed.”

“I am very drunk and I intend to get still drunker before the evening’s over.

But you aren’t going to bed—not yet.

Sit down.”

His voice still held a remnant of its wonted cool drawl but beneath the words she could feel violence fighting its way to the surface, violence as cruel as the crack of a whip.

She wavered irresolutely and he was at her side, his hand on her arm in a grip that hurt.

He gave it a slight wrench and she hastily sat down with a little cry of pain.

Now, she was afraid, more afraid than she had ever been in her life.

As he leaned over her, she saw that his face was dark and flushed and his eyes still held their frightening glitter.

There was something in their depths she did not recognize, could not understand, something deeper than anger, stronger than pain, something driving him until his eyes glowed redly like twin coals.

He looked down at her for a long time, so long that her defiant gaze wavered and fell, and then he slumped into a chair opposite her and poured himself another drink.

She thought rapidly, trying to lay a line of defenses.

But until he spoke, she would not know what to say for she did not know exactly what accusation he intended to make.

He drank slowly, watching her over the glass and she tightened her nerves, trying to keep from trembling.

For a time his face did not change its expression but finally he laughed, still keeping his eyes on her, and at the sound she could not still her shaking.

“It was an amusing comedy, this evening, wasn’t it?”

She said nothing, curling her toes in the loose slippers in an effort at controlling her quivering.

“A pleasant comedy with no character missing.

The village assembled to stone the erring woman, the wronged husband supporting his wife as a gentleman should, the wronged wife stepping in with Christian spirit and casting the garments of her spotless reputation over it all.

And the lover—”

“Please.”

“I don’t please.

Not tonight.

It’s too amusing.

And the lover looking like a damned fool and wishing he were dead.

How does it feel, my dear, to have the woman you hate stand by you and cloak your sins for you?

Sit down.”

She sat down.

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“You don’t like her any better for it, I imagine.

You are wondering if she knows all about you and Ashley—wondering why she did this if she does know—if she just did it to save her own face.

And you are thinking she’s a fool for doing it, even if it did save your hide but—”

“I will not listen—”

“Yes, you will listen.

And I’ll tell you this to ease your worry.

Miss Melly is a fool but not the kind you think.

It was obvious that someone had told her but she didn’t believe it.

Even if she saw, she wouldn’t believe.

There’s too much honor in her to conceive of dishonor in anyone she loves.

I don’t know what lie Ashley Wilkes told her—but any clumsy one would do, for she loves Ashley and she loves you.

I’m sure I can’t see why she loves you but she does.

Let that be one of your crosses.”

“If you were not so drunk and insulting, I would explain everything,” said Scarlett, recovering some dignity.

“But now—”

“I am not interested in your explanations.

I know the truth better than you do.

By God, if you get up out of that chair just once more—

“And what I find more amusing than even tonight’s comedy is the fact that while you have been so virtuously denying me the pleasures of your bed because of my many sins, you have been lusting in your heart after Ashley Wilkes.

‘Lusting in your heart.’

That’s a good phrase, isn’t it?

There are a number of good phrases in that Book, aren’t there?”

“What book?

What book?” her mind ran on, foolishly, irrelevantly as she cast frantic eyes about the room, noting how dully the massive silver gleamed in the dim light, how frighteningly dark the corners were.

“And I was cast out because my coarse ardors were too much for your refinement—because you didn’t want any more children.

How bad that made me feel, dear heart!

How it cut me!

So I went out and found pleasant consolation and left you to your refinements.

And you spent that time tracking the long-suffering Mr. Wilkes.

God damn him, what ails him?

He can’t be faithful to his wife with his mind or unfaithful with his body.

Why doesn’t he make up his mind?

You wouldn’t object to having his children, would you—and passing them off as mine?”

She sprang to her feet with a cry and he lunged from his seat, laughing that soft laugh that made her blood cold.

He pressed her back into her chair with large brown hands and leaned over her.

“Observe my hands, my dear,” he said, flexing them before her eyes.

“I could tear you to pieces with them with no trouble whatsoever and I would do so if it would take Ashley out of your mind.

But it wouldn’t.

So I think I’ll remove him from your mind forever, this way.

I’ll put my hands, so, on each side of your head and I’ll smash your skull between them like a walnut and that will blot him out.”

His hands were on her head, under her flowing hair, caressing, hard, turning her face up to his.

She was looking into the face of a stranger, a drunken drawling-voiced stranger.

She had never lacked animal courage and in the face of danger it flooded back hotly into her veins, stiffening her spine, narrowing her eyes.

“You drunken fool,” she said.

“Take your hands off me.”

To her surprise, he did so and seating himself on the edge of the table he poured himself another drink.

“I have always admired your spirit, my dear.

Never more than now, when you are cornered.”

She drew her wrapper close about her body.

Oh, if she could only reach her room and turn the key in the stout door and be alone.

Somehow, she must stand him off, bully him into submission, this Rhett she had never seen before.

She rose without haste, though her knees shook, tightened the wrapper across her hips and threw back her hair from her face.

“I’m not cornered,” she said cuttingly.

“You’ll never corner me, Rhett Butler, or frighten me.

You are nothing but a drunken beast who’s been with bad women so long that you can’t understand anything else but badness.

You can’t understand Ashley or me.

You’ve lived in dirt too long to know anything else.

You are jealous of something you can’t understand.

Good night.”

She turned casually and started toward the door and a burst of laughter stopped her.

She turned and he swayed across the room toward her.

Name of God, if he would only stop that terrible laugh!

What was there to laugh about in all of this?

As he came toward her, she backed toward the door and found herself against the wall.

He put his hands heavily upon her and pinned her shoulders to the wall.

“Stop laughing.”

“I am laughing because I am so sorry for you.”

“Sorry—for me?

Be sorry for yourself.”

“Yes, by God, I’m sorry for you, my dear, my pretty little fool.

That hurts, doesn’t it?

You can’t stand either laughter or pity, can you?”

He stopped laughing, leaning so heavily against her shoulders that they ached.

His face changed and he leaned so close to her that the heavy whisky smell of his breath made her turn her head.

“Jealous, am I?” he said.

“And why not?

Oh, yes, I’m jealous of Ashley Wilkes.

Why not?

Oh, don’t try to talk and explain.

I know you’ve been physically faithful to me.

Was that what you were trying to say?

Oh, I’ve known that all along.

All these years.

How do I know?

Oh, well, I know Ashley Wilkes and his breed.

I know he is honorable and a gentleman.

And that, my dear, is more than I can say for you—or for me, for that matter.

We are not gentlemen and we have no honor, have we?

That’s why we flourish like green bay trees.”

“Let me go.

I won’t stand here and be insulted.”

“I’m not insulting you.

I’m praising your physical virtue.

And it hasn’t fooled me one bit.

You think men are such fools, Scarlett.

It never pays to underestimate your opponent’s strength and intelligence.

And I’m not a fool.

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Don’t you suppose I know that you’ve lain in my arms and pretended I was Ashley Wilkes?”

Her jaw dropped and fear and astonishment were written plainly in her face.

“Pleasant thing, that.

Rather ghostly, in fact.

Like having three in a bed where there ought to be just two.”

He shook her shoulders, ever so slightly, hiccoughed and smiled mockingly.

“Oh, yes, you’ve been faithful to me because Ashley wouldn’t have you.

But, hell, I wouldn’t have grudged him your body.

I know how little bodies mean—especially women’s bodies.

But I do grudge him your heart and your dear, hard, unscrupulous, stubborn mind.

He doesn’t want your mind, the fool, and I don’t want your body.

I can buy women cheap.

But I do want your mind and your heart, and I’ll never have them, any more than you’ll ever have Ashley’s mind.

And that’s why I’m sorry for you.”

“Sorry—for me?”

“Yes, sorry because you’re such a child, Scarlett.

A child crying for the moon.

What would a child do with the moon if it got it?

And what would you do with Ashley?

Yes, I’m sorry for you—sorry to see you throwing away happiness with both hands and reaching out for something that would never make you happy.

I’m sorry because you are such a fool you don’t know there can’t ever be happiness except when like mates like.

If I were dead, if Miss Melly were dead and you had your precious honorable lover, do you think you’d be happy with him?

Hell, no!

You would never know him, never know what he was thinking about, never understand him any more than you understand music and poetry and books or anything that isn’t dollars and cents.

Whereas, we, dear wife of my bosom, could have been perfectly happy if you had ever given us half a chance, for we are so much alike.

We are both scoundrels, Scarlett, and nothing is beyond us when we want something.

We could have been happy, for I loved you and I know you, Scarlett, down to your bones, in a way that Ashley could never know you.

And he would despise you if he did know….

But no, you must go mooning all your life after a man you cannot understand.

And I, my darling, will continue to moon after whores.

And, I dare say we’ll do better than most couples.”

He released her abruptly and made a weaving way back toward the decanter.

For a moment, Scarlett stood rooted, thoughts tearing in and out of her mind so swiftly that she could seize none of them long enough to examine them.

Rhett had said he loved her.

Did he mean it?

Or was he merely drunk?

Or was this one of his horrible jokes?

And Ashley—the moon—crying for the moon.

She ran swiftly into the dark hall, fleeing as though demons were upon her.

Oh, if she could only reach her room!

She turned her ankle and the slipper fell half off.

As she stopped to kick it loose frantically, Rhett, running lightly as an Indian, was beside her in the dark.

His breath was hot on her face and his hands went round her roughly, under the wrapper, against her bare skin.

“You turned me out on the town while you chased him.

By God, this is one night when there are only going to be two in my bed.”

He swung her off her feet into his arms and started up the stairs.

Her head was crushed against his chest and she heard the hard hammering of his heart beneath her ears.

He hurt her and she cried out, muffled, frightened.

Up the stairs, he went in the utter darkness, up, up, and she was wild with fear.

He was a mad stranger and this was a black darkness she did not know, darker than death.

He was like death, carrying her away in arms that hurt.

She screamed, stifled against him and he stopped suddenly on the landing and, turning her swiftly in his arms, bent over her and kissed her with a savagery and a completeness that wiped out everything from her mind but the dark into which she was sinking and the lips on hers.

He was shaking, as though he stood in a strong wind, and his lips, traveling from her mouth downward to where the wrapper had fallen from her body, fell on her soft flesh.

He was muttering things she did not hear, his lips were evoking feelings never felt before.

She was darkness and he was darkness and there had never been anything before this time, only darkness and his lips upon her.

She tried to speak and his mouth was over hers again.

Suddenly she had a wild thrill such as she had never known; joy, fear, madness, excitement, surrender to arms that were too strong, lips too bruising, fate that moved too fast.

For the first time in her life she had met someone, something stronger than she, someone she could neither bully nor break, someone who was bullying and breaking her.

Somehow, her arms were around his neck and her lips trembling beneath his and they were going up, up into the darkness again, a darkness that was soft and swirling and all enveloping.

********

When she awoke the next morning, he was gone and had it not been for the rumpled pillow beside her, she would have thought the happenings of the night before a wild preposterous dream.

She went crimson at the memory and, pulling the bed covers up about her neck, lay bathed in sunlight, trying to sort out the jumbled impressions in her mind.

Two things stood to the fore.

She had lived for years with Rhett, slept with him, eaten with him, quarreled with him and borne his child—and yet, she did not know him.

The man who had carried her up the dark stairs was a stranger of whose existence she had not dreamed.

And now, though she tried to make herself hate him, tried to be indignant, she could not.

He had humbled her, hurt her, used her brutally through a wild mad night and she had gloried in it.

Oh, she should be ashamed, should shrink from the very memory of the hot swirling darkness!

A lady, a real lady, could never hold up her head after such a night.

But, stronger than shame, was the memory of rapture, of the ecstasy of surrender.

For the first time in her life she had felt alive, felt passion as sweeping and primitive as the fear she had known the night she fled Atlanta, as dizzy sweet as the cold hate when she had shot the Yankee.

Rhett loved her!

At least, he said he loved her and how could she doubt it now?

How odd and bewildering and how incredible that he loved her, this savage stranger with whom she had lived in such coolness.

She was not altogether certain how she felt about this revelation but as an idea came to her she suddenly laughed aloud.

He loved her and so she had him at last.

She had almost forgotten her early desire to entrap him into loving her, so she could hold the whip over his insolent black head.

Now, it came back and it gave her great satisfaction.

For one night, he had had her at his mercy but now she knew the weakness of his armor.

From now on she had him where she wanted him.

She had smarted under his jeers for a long time, but now she had him where she could make him jump through any hoops she cared to hold.

When she thought of meeting him again, face to face in the sober light of day, a nervous tingling embarrassment that carried with it an exciting pleasure enveloped her.

“I’m nervous as a bride,” she thought.

“And about Rhett!”

And, at the idea she fell to giggling foolishly.

But Rhett did not appear for dinner, nor was he at his place at the supper table.

The night passed, a long night during which she lay awake until dawn, her ears strained to hear his key in the latch.

But he did not come.

When the second day passed with no word from him, she was frantic with disappointment and fear.

She went by the bank but he was not there.

She went to the store and was very sharp with everyone, for every time the door opened to admit a customer she looked up with a flutter, hoping it was Rhett.

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She went to the lumber yard and bullied Hugh until he hid himself behind a pile of lumber.

But Rhett did not seek her there.

She could not humble herself to ask friends if they had seen him.

She could not make inquiries among the servants for news of him.

But she felt they knew something she did not know.

Negroes always knew everything.

Mammy was unusually silent those two days.

She watched Scarlett out of the corner of her eye and said nothing.

When the second night had passed Scarlett made up her mind to go to the police.

Perhaps he had had an accident, perhaps his horse had thrown him and he was lying helpless in some ditch.

Perhaps—oh, horrible thought—perhaps he was dead.

The next morning when she had finished her breakfast and was in her room putting on her bonnet, she heard swift feet on the stairs.

As she sank to the bed in weak thankfulness, Rhett entered the room.

He was freshly barbered, shaved and massaged and he was sober, but his eyes were bloodshot and his face puffy from drink.

He waved an airy hand at her and said: “Oh, hello.”

How could a man say: “Oh, hello,” after being gone without explanation for two days?

How could he be so nonchalant with the memory of such a night as they had spent?

He couldn’t unless—unless—the terrible thought leaped into her mind.

Unless such nights were the usual thing to him.

For a moment she could not speak and all the pretty gestures and smiles she had thought to use upon him were forgotten.

He did not even come to her to give her his usual offhand kiss but stood looking at her, with a grin, a smoking cigar in his hand.

“Where—where have you been?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t know! I thought surely the whole town knew by now.

Perhaps they all do, except you.

You know the old adage: ‘The wife is always the last one to find out.’”

“What do you mean?”

“I thought that after the police called at Belle’s night before last—”

“Belle’s—that—that woman!

You have been with—”

“Of course.

Where else would I be?

I hope you haven’t been worried about me.”

“You went from me to—oh!”

“Come, come, Scarlett!

Don’t play the deceived wife.

You must have known about Belle long ago.”

“You went to her from me, after—after—”

“Oh, that.”

He made a careless gesture.

“I will forget my manners.

My apologies for my conduct at our last meeting.

I was very drunk, as you doubtless know, and quite swept off my feet by your charms—need I enumerate them?”

Suddenly she wanted to cry, to lie down on the bed and sob endlessly.

He hadn’t changed, nothing had changed, and she had been a fool, a stupid, conceited, silly fool, thinking he loved her.

It had all been one of his repulsive drunken jests.

He had taken her and used her when he was drunk, just as he would use any woman in Belle’s house.

And now he was back, insulting, sardonic, out of reach.

She swallowed her tears and rallied.

He must never, never know what she had thought.

How he would laugh if he knew!

Well, he’d never know.

She looked up quickly at him and caught that old, puzzling, watchful glint in his eyes—keen, eager as though he hung on her next words, hoping they would be—what was he hoping?

That she’d make a fool out of herself and bawl and give him something to laugh about?

Not she!

Her slanting brows rushed together in a cold frown.

“I had naturally suspected what your relations with that creature were.”

“Only suspected?

Why didn’t you ask me and satisfy your curiosity?

I’d have told you.

I’ve been living with her ever since the day you and Ashley Wilkes decided that we should have separate bedrooms.”

“You have the gall to stand there and boast to me, your wife, that—”

“Oh, spare me your moral indignation.

You never gave a damn what I did as long as I paid the bills.

And you know I’ve been no angel recently.

And as for you being my wife—you haven’t been much of a wife since Bonnie came, have you?

You’ve been a poor investment, Scarlett.

Belle’s been a better one.”

“Investment?

You mean you gave her—”

“‘Set her up in business’ is the correct term, I believe.

Belle’s a smart woman.

I wanted to see her get ahead and all she needed was money to start a house of her own.

You ought to know what miracles a woman can perform when she has a bit of cash.

Look at yourself.”

“You compare me—”

“Well, you are both hard-headed business women and both successful.

Belle’s got the edge on you, of course, because she’s a kind-hearted, good-natured soul—”

“Will you get out of this room?”

He lounged toward the door, one eyebrow raised quizzically.

How could he insult her so, she thought in rage and pain.

He was going out of his way to hurt and humiliate her and she writhed as she thought how she had longed for his homecoming, while all the time he was drunk and brawling with police in a bawdy house.

“Get out of this room and don’t ever come back in it.

I told you that once before and you weren’t enough of a gentleman to understand.

Hereafter I will lock my door.”

“Don’t bother.”

“I will lock it.

After the way you acted the other night—so drunk, so disgusting—”

“Come now, darling!

Not disgusting, surely!”

“Get out.”

“Don’t worry.

I’m going.

And I promise I’ll never bother you again.

That’s final.

And I just thought I’d tell you that if my infamous conduct was too much for you to bear, I’ll let you have a divorce.

Just give me Bonnie and I won’t contest it.”

“I would not think of disgracing the family with a divorce.”

“You’d disgrace it quick enough if Miss Melly was dead, wouldn’t you?

It makes my head spin to think how quickly you’d divorce me.”

“Will you go?”

“Yes, I’m going.

That’s what I came home to tell you.

I’m going to Charleston and New Orleans and—oh, well, a very extended trip.

I’m leaving today.”

“Oh!”

“And I’m taking Bonnie with me.

Get that foolish Prissy to pack her little duds.

I’ll take Prissy too.”

“You’ll never take my child out of this house.”

“My child too, Mrs. Butler.

Surely you do not mind me taking her to Charleston to see her grandmother?”

“Her grandmother, my foot!

Do you think I’ll let you take that baby out of here when you’ll be drunk every night and most likely taking her to houses like that Belle’s—”

He threw down the cigar violently and it smoked acridly on the carpet, the smell of scorching wool rising to their nostrils.

In an instant he was across the floor and by her side, his face black with fury.

“If you were a man, I would break your neck for that.

As it is, all I can say is for you to shut your God-damn mouth.

Do you think I do not love Bonnie, that I would take her where—my daughter!

Good God, you fool!

And as for you, giving yourself pious airs about your motherhood, why, a cat’s a better mother than you!

What have you ever done for the children?

Wade and Ella are frightened to death of you and if it wasn’t for Melanie Wilkes, they’d never know what love and affection are.

But Bonnie, my Bonnie!

Do you think I can’t take better care of her than you?

Do you think I’ll ever let you bully her and break her spirit, as you’ve broken Wade’s and Ella’s?

Hell, no!

Have her packed up and ready for me in an hour or I warn you what happened the other night will be mild beside what will happen.

I’ve always thought a good lashing with a buggy whip would benefit you immensely.”

He turned on his heel before she could speak and went out of the room on swift feet.

She heard him cross the floor of the hall to the children’s play room and open the door.

There was a glad, quick treble of childish voices and she heard Bonnie’s tones rise over Ella’s.

“Daddy, where have you been?”

“Hunting for a rabbit’s skin to wrap my little Bonnie in.

Give your best sweetheart a kiss, Bonnie—and you too, Ella.”

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𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐋𝐕.

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“DARLING, I DON’T WANT ANY EXPLANATION from you and I won’t listen to one,” said Melanie firmly as she gently laid a small hand across Scarlett’s tortured lips and stilled her words.

“You insult yourself and Ashley and me by even thinking there could be need of explanations between us.

Why, we three have been—have been like soldiers fighting the world together for so many years that I’m ashamed of you for thinking idle gossip could come between us.

Do you think I’d believe that you and my Ashley—

Why, the idea!

Don’t you realize I know you better than anyone in the world knows you?

Do you think I’ve forgotten all the wonderful, unselfish things you’ve done for Ashley and Beau and me—everything from saving my life to keeping us from starving!

Do you think I could remember you walking in a furrow behind that Yankee’s horse almost barefooted and with your hands blistered—just so the baby and I could have something to eat—and then believe such dreadful things about you?

I don’t want to hear a word out of you, Scarlett O’Hara.

Not a word.”

“But—” Scarlett fumbled and stopped.

Rhett had left town the hour before with Bonnie and Prissy, and desolation was added to Scarlett’s shame and anger.

The additional burden of her guilt with Ashley and Melanie’s defense was more than she could bear.

Had Melanie believed India and Archie, cut her at the reception or even greeted her frigidly, then she could have held her head high and fought back with every weapon in her armory.

But now, with the memory of Melanie standing between her and social ruin, standing like a thin, shining blade, with trust and a fighting light in her eyes, there seemed nothing honest to do but confess.

Yes, blurt out everything from that far-off beginning on the sunny porch at Tara.

She was driven by a conscience which, though long suppressed, could still rise up, an active Catholic conscience.

“Confess your sins and do penance for them in sorrow and contrition,” Ellen had told her a hundred times and, in this crisis, Ellen’s religious training came back and gripped her.

She would confess—yes, everything, every look and word, those few caresses—and then God would ease her pain and give her peace.

And, for her penance, there would be the dreadful sight of Melanie’s face changing from fond love and trust to incredulous horror and repulsion.

Oh, that was too hard a penance, she thought in anguish, to have to live out her life remembering Melanie’s face, knowing that Melanie knew all the pettiness, the meanness, the two-faced disloyalty and the hypocrisy that were in her.

Once, the thought of flinging the truth tauntingly in Melanie’s face and seeing the collapse of her fool’s paradise had been an intoxicating one, a gesture worth everything she might lose thereby.

But now, all that had changed overnight and there was nothing she desired less.

Why this should be she did not know.

There was too great a tumult of conflicting ideas in her mind for her to sort them out.

She only knew that as she had once desired to keep her mother thinking her modest, kind, pure of heart, so she now passionately desired to keep Melanie’s high opinion.

She only knew that she did not care what the world thought of her or what Ashley or Rhett thought of her, but Melanie must not think her other than she had always thought her.

She dreaded to tell Melanie the truth but one of her rare honest instincts arose, an instinct that would not let her masquerade in false colors before the woman who had fought her battles for her.

So she had hurried to Melanie that morning, as soon as Rhett and Bonnie had left the house.

But at her first tumbled-out words: “Melly, I must explain about the other day—” Melanie had imperiously stopped her.

Scarlett looking shamefaced into the dark eyes that were flashing with love and anger, knew with a sinking heart that the peace and calm following confession could never be hers.

Melanie had forever cut off that line of action by her first words.

With one of the few adult emotions Scarlett had ever had, she realized that to unburden her own tortured heart would be the purest selfishness.

She would be ridding herself of her burden and laying it on the heart of an innocent and trusting person.

She owed Melanie a debt for her championship and that debt could only be paid with silence.

What cruel payment it would be to wreck Melanie’s life with the unwelcome knowledge that her husband was unfaithful to her, and her beloved friend a party to it!

“I can’t tell her,” she thought miserably.

“Never, not even if my conscience kills me.”

She remembered irrelevantly Rhett’s drunken remark: “She can’t conceive a dishonor in anyone she loves… let that be your cross.”

Yes, it would be her cross, until she died, to keep this torment silent within her, to wear the hair shirt of shame, to feel it chafing her at every tender look and gesture Melanie would make throughout the years, to subdue forever the impulse to cry: “Don’t be so kind!

Don’t fight for me!

I’m not worth it!”

“If you only weren’t such a fool, such a sweet, trusting, simple-minded fool, it wouldn’t be so hard,” she thought desperately.

“I’ve toted lots of weary loads but this is going to be the heaviest and most galling load I’ve ever toted.”

Melanie sat facing her, in a low chair, her feet firmly planted on an ottoman so high that her knees stuck up like a child’s, a posture she would never have assumed had not rage possessed her to the point of forgetting proprieties.

She held a line of tatting in her hands and she was driving the shining needle back and forth as furiously as though handling a rapier in a duel.

Had Scarlett been possessed of such an anger, she would have been stamping both feet and roaring like Gerald in his finest days, calling on God to witness the accursed duplicity and knavishness of mankind and uttering blood-curdling threats of retaliation.

But only by the flashing needle and the delicate brows drawn down toward her nose did Melanie indicate that she was inwardly seething.

Her voice was cool and her words more close clipped than usual.

But the forceful words she uttered were foreign to Melanie who seldom voiced an opinion at all and never an unkind word.

Scarlett realized suddenly that the Wilkeses and the Hamiltons were capable of furies equal to and surpassing those of the O’Haras.

“I’ve gotten mighty tired of hearing people criticize you, darling,” Melanie said, “and this is the last straw and I’m going to do something about it.

All this has happened because people are jealous of you, because you are so smart and successful.

You’ve succeeded where lots of men, even, have failed.

Now, don’t be vexed with me, dear, for saying that.

I don’t mean you’ve ever been unwomanly or unsexed yourself, as lots of folks have said.

Because you haven’t.

People just don’t understand you and people can’t bear for women to be smart.

But your smartness and your success don’t give people the right to say that you and Ashley—Stars above!”

The soft vehemence of this last ejaculation would have been, upon a man’s lips, profanity of no uncertain meaning.

Scarlett stared at her, alarmed by so unprecedented an outburst.

“And for them to come to me with the filthy lies they’d concocted—Archie, India, Mrs. Elsing!

How did they dare?

Of course, Mrs. Elsing didn’t come here.

No, indeed, she didn’t have the courage.

But she’s always hated you, darling, because you were more popular than Fanny.

And she was so incensed at your demoting Hugh from the management of the mill.

But you were quite right in demoting him.

He’s just a piddling, do-less, good-for-nothing!”

Swiftly Melanie dismissed the playmate of her childhood and the beau of her teen years.

“I blame myself about Archie.

I shouldn’t have given the old scoundrel shelter.

Everyone told me so but I wouldn’t listen.

He didn’t like you, dear, because of the convicts, but who is he to criticize you?

A murderer, and the murderer of a woman, too!

And after all I’ve done for him, he comes to me and tells me—

I shouldn’t have been a bit sorry if Ashley had shot him.

Well, I packed him off with a large flea in his ear, I can tell you!

And he’s left town.

“And as for India, the vile thing!

Darling, I couldn’t help noticing from the first time I saw you two together that she was jealous of you and hated you because you were so much prettier and had so many beaux.

And she hated you especially about Stuart Tarleton.

And she’s brooded about Stuart so much that—well, I hate to say it about Ashley’s sister but I think her mind has broken with thinking so much!

There’s no other explanation for her action…. I told her never to put foot in this house again and that if I heard her breathe so vile an insinuation I would—I would call her a liar in public!”

Melanie stopped speaking and abruptly the anger left her face and sorrow swamped it.

Melanie had all that passionate clan loyalty peculiar to Georgians and the thought of a family quarrel tore her heart.

She faltered for a moment.

But Scarlett was dearest, Scarlett came first in her heart, and she went on loyally:

“She’s always been jealous because I loved you best, dear.

She’ll never come in this house again and I’ll never put foot under any roof that receives her.

Ashley agrees with me, but it’s just about broken his heart that his own sister should tell such a—”

At the mention of Ashley’s name, Scarlett’s overwrought nerves gave way and she burst into tears.

Would she never stop stabbing him to the heart?

Her only thought had been to make him happy and safe but at every turn she seemed to hurt him.

She had wrecked his life, broken his pride and self-respect, shattered that inner peace, that calm based on integrity.

And now she had alienated him from the sister he loved so dearly.

To save her own reputation and his wife’s happiness, India had to be sacrificed, forced into the light of a lying, half-crazed, jealous old maid—India who was absolutely justified in every suspicion she had ever harbored and every accusing word she had uttered.

Whenever Ashley looked into India’s eyes he would see the truth shining there, truth and reproach and the cold contempt of which the Wilkeses were masters.

Knowing how Ashley valued honor above his life, Scarlett knew he must be writhing.

He, like Scarlett, was forced to shelter behind Melanie’s skirts.

While Scarlett realized the necessity for this and knew that the blame for his false position lay mostly at her own door, still—still—

Womanlike she would have respected Ashley more, had he shot Archie and admitted everything to Melanie and the world.

She knew she was being unfair but she was too miserable to care for such fine points.

Some of Rhett’s taunting words of contempt came back to her and she wondered if indeed Ashley had played the manly part in this mess.

And, for the first time, some of the bright glow which had enveloped him since the first day she fell in love with him began to fade imperceptibly.

The tarnish of shame and guilt that enveloped her spread to him as well.

Resolutely she tried to fight off this thought but it only made her cry harder.

“Don’t!

Don’t!” cried Melanie, dropping her tatting and flinging herself onto the sofa and drawing Scarlett’s head down onto her shoulder.

“I shouldn’t have talked about it all and distressed you so.

I know how dreadfully you must feel and we’ll never mention it again.

No, not to each other or to anybody.

It’ll be as though it never happened.

But,” she added with quiet venom, “I’m going to show India and Mrs. Elsing what’s what.

They needn’t think they can spread lies about my husband and my sister-in-law.

I’m going to fix it so neither of them can hold up their heads in Atlanta.

And anybody who believes them or receives them is my enemy.”

Scarlett, looking sorrowfully down the long vista of years to come, knew that she was the cause of a feud that would split the town and the family for generations.

********

Melanie was as good as her word.

She never again mentioned the subject to Scarlett or to Ashley.

Nor, for that matter, would she discuss it with anyone.

She maintained an air of cool indifference that could speedily change to icy formality if anyone even dared hint about the matter.

During the weeks that followed her surprise party, while Rhett was mysteriously absent and the town in a frenzied state of gossip, excitement and partisanship, she gave no quarter to Scarlett’s detractors, whether they were her old friends or her blood kin.

She did not speak, she acted.

She stuck by Scarlett’s side like a cocklebur.

She made Scarlett go to the store and the lumber yard, as usual, every morning and she went with her.

She insisted that Scarlett go driving in the afternoons, little though Scarlett wanted to expose herself to the eager curious gaze of her fellow townspeople.

And Melanie sat in the carriage beside her.

Melanie took her calling with her on formal afternoons, gently forcing her into parlors in which Scarlett had not sat for more than two years.

And Melanie, with a fierce “love-me-love-my-dog” look on her face, made converse with astounded hostesses.

She made Scarlett arrive early on these afternoons and remain until the last callers had gone, thereby depriving the ladies of the opportunity for enjoyable group discussion and speculation, a matter which caused some mild indignation.

These calls were an especial torment to Scarlett but she dared not refuse to go with Melanie.

She hated to sit amid crowds of women who were secretly wondering if she had been actually taken in adultery.

She hated the knowledge that these women would not have spoken to her, had it not been that they loved Melanie and did not want to lose her friendship.

But Scarlett knew that, having once received her, they could not cut her thereafter.

It was characteristic of the regard in which Scarlett was held that few people based their defense or their criticism of her on her personal integrity.

“I wouldn’t put much beyond her,” was the universal attitude.

Scarlett had made too many enemies to have many champions now.

Her words and her actions rankled in too many hearts for many people to care whether this scandal hurt her or not.

But everyone cared violently about hurting Melanie or India and the storm revolved around them, rather than Scarlett, centering upon the one question—“Did India lie?”

Those who espoused Melanie’s side pointed triumphantly to the fact that Melanie was constantly with Scarlett these days.

Would a woman of Melanie’s high principles champion the cause of a guilty woman, especially a woman guilty with her own husband?

No, indeed!

India was just a cracked old maid who hated Scarlett and lied about her and induced Archie and Mrs. Elsing to believe her lies.

But, questioned India’s adherents, if Scarlett isn’t guilty, where is Captain Butler?

Why isn’t he here at his wife’s side, lending her the strength of his countenance?

That was an unanswerable question and, as the weeks went by and the rumor spread that Scarlett was pregnant, the pro-India group nodded with satisfaction.

It couldn’t be Captain Butler’s baby, they said.

For too long the fact of their estrangement had been public property.

For too long the town had been scandalized by the separate bedrooms.

So the gossip ran, tearing the town apart, tearing apart, too, the close-knit clan of Hamiltons, Wilkeses, Burrs, Whitmans and Winfields.

Everyone in the family connection was forced to take sides.

There was no neutral ground.

Melanie with cool dignity and India with acid bitterness saw to that.

But no matter which side the relatives took, they all were resentful that Scarlett should have been the cause of the family breach.

None of them thought her worth it.

And no matter which side they took, the relatives heartily deplored that India had taken it upon herself to wash the family dirty linen so publicly and involve Ashley in so degrading a scandal.

But now that she had spoken, many rushed to her defense and took her side against Scarlett, even as others, loving Melanie, stood by her and Scarlett.

Half of Atlanta was kin to or claimed kin with Melanie and India.

The ramifications of cousins, double cousins, cousins-in-law and kissing cousins were so intricate and involved that no one but a born Georgian could ever unravel them.

They had always been a clannish tribe, presenting an unbroken phalanx of overlapping shields to the world in times of stress, no matter what their private opinions of the conduct of individual kinsmen might be.

With the exception of the guerrilla warfare carried on by Aunt Pitty against Uncle Henry, which had been a matter for hilarious laughter within the family for years, there had never been an open breach in the pleasant relations.

They were gentle, quiet spoken, reserved people and not given to even the amiable bickering that characterized most Atlanta families.

But now they were split in twain and the town was privileged to witness cousins of the fifth and sixth degree taking sides in the most shattering scandal Atlanta had ever seen.

This worked great hardship and strained the tact and forbearance of the unrelated half of the town, for the India-Melanie feud made a rupture in practically every social organization.

The Thalians, the Sewing Circle for the Widows and Orphans of the Confederacy, the Association for the Beautification of the Graves of Our Glorious Dead, the Saturday Night Musical Circle, the Ladies’ Evening Cotillion Society, the Young Men’s Library were all involved.

So were four churches with their Ladies’ Aid and Missionary societies.

Great care had to be taken to avoid putting members of warring factions on the same committees.

On their regular afternoons at home, Atlanta matrons were in anguish from four to six o’clock for fear Melanie and Scarlett would call at the same time India and her loyal kin were in their parlors.

Of all the family, poor Aunt Pitty suffered the most.

Pitty, who desired nothing except to live comfortably amid the love of her relatives, would have been very pleased, in this matter, to run with the hares and hunt with the hounds.

But neither the hares nor the hounds would permit this.

India lived with Aunt Pitty and, if Pitty sided with Melanie, as she wished to do, India would leave.

And if India left her, what would poor Pitty do then?

She could not live alone.

She would have to get a stranger to live with her or she would have to close up her house and go and live with Scarlett.

Aunt Pitty felt vaguely that Captain Butler would not care for this.

Or she would have to go and live with Melanie and sleep in the little cubbyhole that was Beau’s nursery.

Pitty was not overly fond of India, for India intimidated her with her dry, stiff-necked ways and her passionate convictions.

But she made it possible for Pitty to keep her own comfortable establishment and Pitty was always swayed more by considerations of personal comfort than by moral issues.

And so India remained.

But her presence in the house made Aunt Pitty a storm center, for both Scarlett and Melanie took that to mean that she sided with India.

Scarlett curtly refused to contribute more money to Pitty’s establishment as long as India was under the same roof.

Ashley sent India money every week and every week India proudly and silently returned it, much to the old lady’s alarm and regret.

Finances at the red-brick house would have been in a deplorable state, but for Uncle Henry’s intervention, and it humiliated Pitty to take money from him.

Pitty loved Melanie better than anyone in the world, except herself, and now Melly acted like a cool, polite stranger.

Though she practically lived in Pitty’s back yard, she never once came through the hedge and she used to run in and out a dozen times a day.

Pitty called on her and wept and protested her love and devotion, but Melanie always refused to discuss matters and never returned the calls.

Pitty knew very well what she owed Scarlett—almost her very existence.

Certainly in those black days after the war when Pitty was faced with the alternative of Brother Henry or starvation, Scarlett had kept her home for her, fed her, clothed her and enabled her to hold up her head in Atlanta society.

And since Scarlett had married and moved into her own home, she had been generosity itself.

And that frightening, fascinating Captain Butler—frequently after he called with Scarlett, Pitty found brand-new purses stuffed with bills on her console table or lace handkerchiefs knotted about gold pieces which had been slyly slipped into her sewing box.

Rhett always vowed he knew nothing about them and accused her, in a very unrefined way, of having a secret admirer, usually the bewiskered Grandpa Merriwether.

Yes, Pitty owed love to Melanie, security to Scarlett, and what did she owe India?

Nothing, except that India’s presence kept her from having to break up her pleasant life and make decisions for herself.

It was all most distressing and too, too vulgar and Pitty, who had never made a decision for herself in her whole life, simply let matters go on as they were and as a result, spent much time in uncomforted tears.

In the end, some people believed whole-heartedly in Scarlett’s innocence, not because of her own personal virtue but because Melanie believed in it.

Some had mental reservations but they were courteous to Scarlett and called on her because they loved Melanie and wished to keep her love.

India’s adherents bowed coldly and some few cut her openly.

These last were embarrassing, infuriating, but Scarlett realized that, except for Melanie’s championship and her quick action, the face of the whole town would have been set against her and she would have been an outcast.