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Part II

Chapter 8

A

s the train carried Scarlett northward that May morning in 1862, she thought that Atlanta couldn’t possibly be so boring as Charleston and Savannah had been and, in spite of her distaste for Miss Pittypat and Melanie, she looked forward with some curiosity toward seeing how the town had fared since her last visit, in the winter before the war began.

Atlanta had always interested her more than any other town because when she was a child Gerald had told her that she and Atlanta were exactly the same age. She discovered when she grew older that Gerald had stretched the truth somewhat, as was his habit when a little stretching would improve a story; but Atlanta was only nine years older than she was, and that still left the place amazingly young by comparison with any other town she had ever heard of. Savannah and Charleston had the dignity of their years, one being well along in its second century and the other entering its third, and in her young eyes they had always seemed like aged grandmothers fanning themselves placidly in the sun. But Atlanta was of her own generation, crude with the crudities of youth and as headstrong and impetuous as herself.

The story Gerald had told her was based on the fact that she and Atlanta were christened in the same year. In the nine years before Scarlett was born, the town had been called, first, Terminus and then Marthasville, and not until the year of Scarlett’s birth had it become Atlanta.

When Gerald first moved to north Georgia, there had been no Atlanta at all, not even the semblance of a village, and wilderness rolled over the site. But the next year, in 1836, the State had authorized the building of a railroad northwestward through the territory which the Cherokees had recently ceded. The destination of the proposed railroad, Tennessee and the West, was clear and definite, but its beginning point in Georgia was somewhat uncertain until, a year later, an engineer drove a stake in the red clay to mark the southern end of the line, and Atlanta, born Terminus, had begun.

There were no railroads then in north Georgia, and very few anywhere else. But during the years before Gerald married Ellen, the tiny settlement, twenty-five miles north of Tara, slowly grew into a village and the tracks slowly pushed northward. Then the railroad building era really began. From the old city of Augusta, a second railroad was extended westward across the state to connect with the new road to Tennessee. From the old city of Savannah, a third railroad was built first to Macon, in the heart of Georgia, and then north through Gerald’s own county to Atlanta, to link up with the other two roads and give Savannah’s harbor a highway to the West. From the same junction point, the young Atlanta, a fourth railroad was constructed southwestward to Montgomery and Mobile.

Born of a railroad, Atlanta grew as its railroads grew. With the completion of the four lines, Atlanta was now connected with the West, with the South, with the Coast and, through Augusta, with the North and East. It had become the crossroads of travel north and south and east and west, and the little village leaped to life.

In a space of time but little longer than Scarlett’s seventeen years, Atlanta had grown from a single stake driven in the ground into a thriving small city of ten thousand that was the center of attention for the whole state. The older, quieter cities were wont to look upon the bustling new town with the sensations of a hen which has hatched a duckling. Why was the place so different from the other Georgia towns? Why did it grow so fast? After all, they thought, it had nothing whatever to recommend it—only its railroads and a bunch of mighty pushy people.

The people who settled the town called successively Terminus, Marthasville and Atlanta, were a pushy people. Restless, energetic people from the older sections of Georgia and from more distant states were drawn to this town that sprawled itself around the junction of the railroads in its center. They came with enthusiasm. They built their stores around the five muddy red roads that crossed near the depot. They built their fine homes on Whitehall and Washington streets and along the high ridge of land on which countless generations of moccasined Indian feet had beaten a path called the Peachtree Trail. They were proud of the place, proud of its growth, proud of themselves for making it grow. Let the older towns call Atlanta anything they pleased. Atlanta did not care.

Scarlett had always liked Atlanta for the very same reasons that made Savannah, Augusta and Macon condemn it. Like herself, the town was a mixture of the old and new in Georgia, in which the old often came off second best in its conflicts with the self-willed and vigorous new. Moreover, there was something personal, exciting about a town that was born—or at least christened—the same year she was christened.

The night before had been wild and wet with rain, but when Scarlett arrived in Atlanta a warm sun was at work, bravely attempting to dry the streets that were winding rivers of red mud. In the open space around the depot, the soft ground had been cut and churned by the constant flow of traffic in and out until it resembled an enormous hog wallow, and here and there vehicles were mired to the hubs in the ruts. A never-ceasing line of army wagons and ambulances, loading and unloading supplies and wounded from the trains, made the mud and confusion worse as they toiled in and struggled out, drivers swearing, mules plunging and mud spattering for yards.

Scarlett stood on the lower step of the train, a pale pretty figure in her black mourning dress, her crepe veil fluttering almost to her heels. She hesitated, unwilling to soil her slippers and hems, and looked about in the shouting tangle of wagons, buggies and carriages for Miss Pittypat. There was no sign of that chubby pink-cheeked lady, but as Scarlett searched anxiously a spare old negro, with grizzled kinks and an air of dignified authority, came toward her through the mud, his hat in his hand.

“Dis Miss Scarlett, ain’ it? Dis hyah Peter, Miss Pitty’s coachman. Doan step down in dat mud,” he ordered severely, as Scarlett gathered up her skirts preparatory to descending. “You is as bad as Miss Pitty an’ she lak a chile ‘bout gittin’ her feets wet. Lemme cahy you.”

He picked Scarlett up with ease despite his apparent frailness and age and, observing Prissy standing on the platform of the train, the baby in her arms, he paused: “Is dat air chile yo’ nuss? Miss Scarlett, she too young ter be handlin’ Mist’ Charles’ onlies’ baby! But we ten’ to dat later. You gal, foller me, an’ doan you go drappin’ dat baby.”

Scarlett submitted meekly to being carried toward the carriage and also to the peremptory manner in which Uncle Peter criticized her and Prissy. As they went through the mud with Prissy sloshing, pouting, after them, she recalled what Charles had said about Uncle Peter.

“He went through all the Mexican campaigns with Father, nursed him when he was wounded—in fact, he saved his life. Uncle Peter practically raised Melanie and me, for we were very young when Father and Mother died. Aunt Pitty had a falling out with her brother, Uncle Henry, about that time, so she came to live with us and take care of us. She is the most helpless soul—just like a sweet grown-up child, and Uncle Peter treats her that way. To save her life, she couldn’t make up her mind about anything, so Peter makes it up for her. He was the one who decided I should have a larger allowance when I was fifteen, and he insisted that I should go to Harvard for my senior year, when Uncle Henry wanted me to take my degree at the University. And he decided when Melly was old enough to put up her hair and go to parties. He tells Aunt Pitty when it’s too cold or too wet for her to go calling and when she should wear a shawl. . . . He’s the smartest old darky I’ve ever seen and about the most devoted. The only trouble with him is that he owns the three of us, body and soul, and he knows it.”

Charles’ words were confirmed as Peter climbed onto the box and took the whip.

“Miss Pitty in a state bekase she din’ come ter meet you. She’s feared you mout not unnerstan’ but Ah tole her she an’ Miss Melly jes’ git splashed wid mud an’ ruin dey new dresses an’ Ah’d ‘splain ter you. Miss Scarlett, you better tek dat chile. Dat lil pickaninny gwine let it drap.”

Scarlett looked at Prissy and sighed. Prissy was not the most adequate of nurses. Her recent graduation from a skinny pickaninny with brief skirts and stiffly wrapped braids into the dignity of a calico dress and starched white turban was an intoxicating affair. She would never have arrived at this eminence so early in life had not the exigencies of war and the demands of the commissary department on Tara made it impossible for Ellen to spare Mammy or Dilcey or even Rosa or Teena. Prissy had never been more than a mile away from Twelve Oaks or Tara before, and the trip on the train plus her elevation to nurse was almost more than the brain in her little black skull could bear. The twenty-mile journey from Jonesboro to Atlanta had so excited her that Scarlett had been forced to hold the baby all the way. Now, the sight of so many buildings and people completed Prissy’s demoralization. She twisted from side to side, pointed, bounced about and so jounced the baby that he wailed miserably.

Scarlett longed for the fat old arms of Mammy. Mammy had only to lay hands on a child and it hushed crying. But Mammy was at Tara and there was nothing Scarlett could do. It was useless for her to take little Wade from Prissy. He yelled just as loudly when she held him as when Prissy did. Besides, he would tug at the ribbons of her bonnet and, no doubt, rumple her dress. So she pretended she had not heard Uncle Peter’s suggestion.

“Maybe I’ll learn about babies sometime,” she thought irritably, as the carriage jolted and swayed out of the morass surrounding the station, “but I’m never going to like fooling with them.” And as Wade’s face went purple with his squalling, she snapped crossly: “Give him that sugar-tit in your pocket, Priss. Anything to make him hush. I know he’s hungry, but I can’t do anything about that now.”

Prissy produced the sugar-tit, given her that morning by Mammy, and the baby’s wails subsided. With quiet restored and with the new sights that met her eyes, Scarlest’s spirits began to rise a little. When Uncle Peter finally maneuvered the carriage out of the mudholes and onto Peachtree Street, she felt the first surge of interest she had known in months. How the town had grown! It was not much more than a year since she had last been here, and it did not seem possible that the little Atlanta she knew could have changed so much.

For the past year, she had been so engrossed in her own woes, so bored by any mention of war, she did not know that from the minute the fighting first began, Atlanta had been transformed. The same railroads which had made the town the crossroads of commerce in time of peace were now of vital strategic importance in time of war. Far from the battle lines, the town and its railroads provided the connecting link between the two armies of the Confederacy, the army in Virginia and the army in Tennessee and the West. And Atlanta likewise linked both of the armies with the deeper South from which they drew their supplies. Now, in response to the needs of war, Atlanta had become a manufacturing center, a hospital base and one of the South’s chief depots for the collecting of food and supplies for the armies in the field.

Scarlett looked about her for the little town she remembered so well. It was gone. The town she was now seeing was like a baby grown overnight into a busy, sprawling giant.

Atlanta was humming like a beehive, proudly conscious of its importance to the Confederacy, and work was going forward night and day toward turning an agricultural section into an industrial one. Before the war there had been few cotton factories, woolen mills, arsenals and machine shops south of Maryland—a fact of which all Southerners were proud. The South produced statesmen and soldiers, planters and doctors, lawyers and poets, but certainly not engineers or mechanics. Let the Yankees adopt such low callings. But now the Confederate ports were stoppered with Yankee gunboats, only a trickle of blockade-run goods was slipping in from Europe, and the South was desperately trying to manufacture her own war materials. The North could call on the whole world for supplies and for soldiers, and thousands of Irish and Germans were pouring into the Union Army, lured by the bounty money offered by the North. The South could only turn in upon itself.

In Atlanta, there were machine factories tediously turning out machinery to manufacture war materials—tediously, because there were few machines in the South from which they could model and nearly every wheel and cog had to be made from drawings that came through the blockade from England. There were strange faces on the streets of Atlanta now, and citizens who a year ago would have pricked up their ears at the sound of even a Western accent paid no heed to the foreign tongues of Europeans who had run the blockade to build machines and turn out Confederate munitions. Skilled men these, without whom the Confederacy would have been hard put to make pistols, rifles, cannon and powder.

Almost the pulsing of the town’s heart could be felt as the work went forward night and day, pumping the materials of war up the railway arteries to the two battle fronts. Trains roared in and out of the town at all hours. Soot from the newly erected factories fell in showers on the white houses. By night, the furnaces glowed and the hammers clanged long after townsfolk were abed. Where vacant lots had been a year before, there were now factories turning out harness, saddles and shoes, ordnance-supply plants making rifles and cannon, rolling mills and foundries producing iron rails and freight cars to replace those destroyed by the Yankees, and a variety of industries manufacturing spurs, bridle bits, buckles, tents, buttons, pistols and swords. Already the foundries were beginning to feel the lack of iron, for little or none came through the blockade, and the mines in Alabama were standing almost idle while the miners were at the front. There were no iron picket fences, iron summerhouses, iron gates or even iron statuary on the lawns of Atlanta now, for they had early found their way into the melting pots of the rolling mills.

Here along Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the headquarters of the various army departments, each office swarming with uniformed men, the commissary, the signal corps, the mail service, the railway transport, the provost marshal. On the outskirts of town were the remount depots where horses and mules milled about in large corrals, and along side streets were the hospitals. As Uncle Peter told her about them, Scarlett felt that Atlanta must be a city of the wounded, for there were general hospitals, contagious hospitals, convalescent hospitals without number. And every day the trains just below Five Points disgorged more sick and more wounded.

The little town was gone and the face of the rapidly growing city was animated with never-ceasing energy and bustle. The sight of so much hurrying made Scarlett, fresh from rural leisure and quiet, almost breathless, but she liked it. There was an exciting atmosphere about the place that uplifted her. It was as if she could actually feel the accelerated steady pulse of the town’s heart beating in time with her own.

As they slowly made their way through the mudholes of the town’s chief street, she noted with interest all the new buildings and the new faces. The sidewalks were crowded with men in uniform, bearing the insignia of all ranks and all service branches; the narrow street was jammed with vehicles—carriages, buggies, ambulances, covered army wagons with profane drivers swearing as the mules struggled through the ruts; gray-clad couriers dashed spattering through the streets from one headquarters to another, bearing orders and telegraphic dispatches; convalescents limped about on crutches, usually with a solicitous lady at either elbow; bugle and drum and barked orders sounded from the drill fields where the recruits were being turned into soldiers; and with her heart in her throat, Scarlett had her first sight of Yankee uniforms, as Uncle Peter pointed with his whip to a detachment of dejected-looking bluecoats being shepherded toward the depot by a squad of Confederates with fixed bayonets, to entrain for the prison camp.

“Oh,” thought Scarlett, with the first feeling of real pleasure she had experienced since the day of the barbecue, “I’m going to like it here! It’s so alive and exciting!”

The town was even more alive than she realized, for there were new barrooms by the dozens; prostitutes, following the army, swarmed the town and bawdy houses were blossoming with women to the consternation of the church people. Every hotel, boarding house and private residence was crammed with visitors who had come to be near wounded relatives in the big Atlanta hospitals. There were parties and balls and bazaars every week and war weddings without number, with the grooms on furlough in bright gray and gold braid and the brides in blockade-run finery, aisles of crossed swords, toasts drunk in blockaded champagne and tearful farewells. Nightly the dark tree-lined streets resounded with dancing feet, and from parlors tinkled pianos where soprano voices blended with those of soldier guests in the pleasing melancholy of “The Bugles Sang Truce” and “Your Letter Came, but Came Too Late”— plaintive ballads that brought exciting tears to soft eyes which had never known the tears of real grief.

As they progressed down the street, through the sucking mud, Scarlett bubbled over with questions and Peter answered them, pointing here and there with his whip, proud to display his knowledge.

“Dat air de arsenal. Yas’m, dey keeps guns an’ sech lak dar. No’m, dem air ain’ sto’s, dey’s blockade awfisses. Law, Miss Scarlett, doan you know whut blockade awfisses is? Dey’s awfisses whar furriners stays dat buy us Confedruts’ cotton an’ ship it outer Cha’ston and Wilmin’ton an’ ship us back gunpowder. No’m, Ah ain’ sho whut kine of furriners dey is. Miss Pitty, she say dey is Inlish but kain nobody unnerstan a’ wud dey says. Yas’m ’tis pow’ful smoky an’ de soot jes’ ruinin’ Miss Pitty’s silk cuttins. It’ frum de foun’ry an’ de rollin’ mills. An’ de noise dey meks at night! Kain nobody sleep. No’m, Ah kain stop fer you ter look around. Ah done promise Miss Pitty Ah bring you straight home. . . . Miss Scarlett, mek yo’ cu’tsy. Dar’s Miss Merriwether an’ Miss Elsing a-bowin’ to you.”

Scarlett vaguely remembered two ladies of those names who came from Atlanta to Tara to attend her wedding and she remembered that they were Miss Pittypat’s best friends. So she turned quickly where Uncle Peter pointed and bowed. The two were sitting in a carriage outside a drygoods store. The proprietor and two clerks stood on the sidewalk with armfuls of bolts of cotton cloth they had been displaying. Mrs. Merriwether was a tall, stout woman and so tightly corseted that her bust jutted forward like the prow of a ship. Her iron-gray hair was eked out by a curled false fringe that was proudly brown and disdained to match the rest of her hair. She had a round, highly colored face in which was combined good-natured shrewdness and the habit of command. Mrs. Elsing was younger, a thin frail woman, who had been a beauty, and about her there still clung a faded freshness, a dainty imperious air.

These two ladies with a third, Mrs. Whiting, were the pillars of Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged, the clergy, the choirs and the parishioners. They organized bazaars and presided over sewing circles, they chaperoned balls and picnics, they knew who made good matches and who did not, who drank secretly, who were to have babies and when. They were authorities on the genealogies of everyone who was anyone in Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia and did not bother their heads about the other states, because they believed that no one who was anybody ever came from states other than these three. They knew what was decorous behavior and what was not and they never failed to make their opinions known—Mrs. Merriwether at the top of her voice, Mrs. Elsing in an elegant die-away drawl and Mrs. Whiting in a distressed whisper which showed how much she hated to speak of such things. These three ladies disliked and distrusted one another as heartily as the First Triumvirate of Rome, and their close alliance was probably for the same reason.

“I told Pitty I had to have you in my hospital,” called Mrs. Merriweather, smiling. “Don’t you go promising Mrs. Meade or Mrs. Whiting!”

“I won’t,” said Scarlett, having no idea what Mrs. Merriwether was talking about but feeling a glow of warmth at being welcomed and wanted. “I hope to see you again soon.”

The carriage plowed its way farther and halted for a moment to permit two ladies with baskets of bandages on their arms to pick precarious passages across the sloppy street on stepping stones. At the same moment, Scarlett’s eye was caught by a figure on the sidewalk in a brightly colored dress—too bright for street wear—covered by a Paisley shawl with fringes to the heels. Turning she saw a tall handsome woman with a bold face and a mass of red hair, too red to be true. It was the first time she had ever seen any woman who she knew for certain had “done something to her hair” and she watched her, fascinated.

“Uncle Peter, who is that?” she whispered.

“Ah doan know.”

“You do, too. I can tell. Who is she?”

“Her name Belle Watling,” said Uncle Peter, his lower lip beginning to protrude.

Scarlett was quick to catch the fact that he had not preceded the name with “Miss” or “Mrs.”

“Who is she?”

“Miss Scarlett,” said Peter darkly, laying the whip on the startled horse, “Miss Pitty ain’ gwine ter lak it you astin’ questions dat ain’ none of yo’ bizness. Dey’s a passel of no-count folks in dis town now dat it ain’ no use talkin’ about.”

“Good Heavens!” thought Scarlett, reproved into silence. “That must be a bad woman!”

She had never seen a bad woman before and she twisted her head and stared after her until she was lost in the crowd.

The stores and the new war buildings were farther apart now, with vacant lots between. Finally, the business section fell behind and the residences came into view. Scarlett picked them out as old friends, the Leyden house, dignified and stately; the Bonnells’, with little white columns and green blinds; the close-lipped red-brick Georgian home of the McLure family, behind its low box hedges. Their progress was slower now, for from porches and gardens and sidewalks ladies called to her. Some she knew slightly, others she vaguely remembered, but most of them she knew not at all. Pittypat had certainly broadcast her arrival. Little Wade had to be held up time and again, so that ladies who ventured as far through the ooze as their carriage blocks could exclaim over him. They all cried to her that she must join their knitting and sewing circles and their hospital committees, and no one else’s, and she promised recklessly to right and left.

As they passed a rambling green clapboard house, a little black girl posted on the front steps cried, “Hyah she come,” and Dr. Meade and his wife and little thirteen-year-old Phil emerged, calling greetings. Scarlett recalled that they too had been at her wedding. Mrs. Meade mounted her carriage block and craned her neck for a view of the baby, but the doctor, disregarding the mud, plowed through to the side of the carriage. He was tall and gaunt and wore a pointed beard of iron gray, and his clothes hung on his spare figure as though blown there by a hurricane. Atlanta considered him the root of all strength and all wisdom and it was not strange that he had absorbed something of their belief. But for all his habit of making oracular statements and his slightly pompous manner, he was as kindly a man as the town possessed.

After shaking her hand and prodding Wade in the stomach and complimenting him, the doctor announced that Aunt Pittypat had promised on oath that Scarlett should be on no other hospital and bandage-rolling committee save Mrs. Meade’s.

“Oh, dear, but I’ve promised a thousand ladies already!” said Scarlett.

“Mrs. Merriwether, I’ll be bound!” cried Mrs. Meade indignantly. “Drat the woman! I believe she meets every train!”

“I promised because I hadn’t a notion what it was all about,” Scarlett confessed. “What are hospital committees anyway?”

Both the doctor and his wife looked slightly shocked at her ignorance.

“But, of course, you’ve been buried in the country and couldn’t know,” Mrs. Meade apologized for her. “We have nursing committees for different hospitals and for different days. We nurse the men and help the doctors and make bandages and clothes and when the men are well enough to leave the hospitals we take them into our homes to convalesce till they are able to go back in the army. And we look after the wives and families of some of the wounded who are destitute—yes, worse than destitute. Dr. Meade is at the Institute hospital where my committee works, and everyone says he’s marvelous and—”

“There, there, Mrs. Meade,” said the doctor fondly. “Don’t go bragging on me in front of folks. It’s little enough I can do, since you wouldn’t let me go in the army.”

“‘Wouldn’t let!’” she cried indignantly. “Me? The town wouldn’t let you and you know it. Why, Scarlett, when folks heard he was intending to go to Virginia as an army surgeon, all the ladies signed a petition begging him to stay here. Of course, the town couldn’t do without you.”

“There, there, Mrs. Meade,” said the doctor, basking obviously in the praise. “Perhaps with one boy at the front, that’s enough for the time being.”

“And I’m going next year!” cried little Phil hopping about excitedly. “As a drummer boy. I’m learning how to drum now. Do you want to hear me? I’ll run get my drum.”

“No, not now,” said Mrs. Meade, drawing him closer to her, a sudden look of strain coming over her face. “Not next year, darling. Maybe the year after.”

“But the war will be over then!” he cried petulantly, pulling away from her. “And you promised!”

Over his head the eyes of the parents met and Scarlett saw the look. Darcy Meade was in Virginia and they were clinging closer to the little boy that was left.

Uncle Peter cleared his throat.

“Miss Pitty were in a state when Ah lef’ home an’ ef Ah doan git dar soon, she’ll done swooned.”

“Good-by. I’ll be over this afternoon,” called Mrs. Meade. “And you tell Pitty for me that if you aren’t on my committee, she’s going to be in a worse state.”

The carriage slipped and slid down the muddy road and Scarlett leaned back on the cushions and smiled. She felt better now than she had felt in months. Atlanta, with its crowds and its hurry and its undercurrent of driving excitement, was very pleasant, very exhilarating, so very much nicer than the lonely plantation out from Charleston, where the bellow of alligators broke the night stillness; better than Charleston itself, dreaming in its gardens behind its high walls; better than Savannah with its wide streets lined with palmetto and the muddy river beside it. Yes, and temporarily even better than Tara, dear though Tara was.

There was something exciting about this town with its narrow muddy streets, lying among rolling red hills, something raw and crude that appealed to the rawness and crudeness underlying the fine veneer that Ellen and Mammy had given her. She suddenly felt that this was where she belonged, not in serene and quiet old cities, flat beside yellow waters.

The houses were farther and farther apart now, and leaning out Scarlett saw the red brick and slate roof of Miss Pittypat’s house. It was almost the last house on the north side of town. Beyond it, Peachtree road narrowed and twisted under great trees out of sight into thick quiet woods. The neat wooden-paneled fence had been newly painted white and the front yard it inclosed was yellow starred with the last jonquils of the season. On the front steps stood two women in black and behind them a large yellow woman with her hands under her apron and her white teeth showing in a wide smile. Plump Miss Pittypat was teetering excitedly on tiny feet, one hand pressed to her copious bosom to still her fluttering heart. Scarlett saw Melanie standing by her and, with a surge of dislike, she realized that the fly in the ointment of Atlanta would be this slight little person in black mourning dress, her riotous dark curls subdued to matronly smoothness and a loving smile of welcome and happiness on her heart-shaped face.

When a Southerner took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Often when newly married couples went on the usual round of honeymoon visits, they lingered in some pleasant home until the birth of their second child. Frequently elderly aunts and uncles came to Sunday dinner and remained until they were buried years later. Visitors presented no problem, for houses were large, servants numerous and the feeding of several extra mouths a minor matter in that land of plenty. All ages and sexes went visiting, honeymooners, young mothers showing off new babies, convalescents, the bereaved, girls whose parents were anxious to remove them from the dangers of unwise matches, girls who had reached the danger age without becoming engaged and who, it was hoped, would make suitable matches under the guidance of relatives in other places. Visitors added excitement and variety to the slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.

So Scarlett had come to Atlanta with no idea as to how long she would remain. If her visit proved as dull as those in Savannah and Charleston, she would return home in a month. If her stay was pleasant, she would remain indefinitely. But no sooner had she arrived than Aunt Pitty and Melanie began a campaign to induce her to make her home permanently with them. They brought up every possible argument. They wanted her for her own self because they loved her. They were lonely and often frightened at night in the big house, and she was so brave she gave them courage. She was so charming that she cheered them in their sorrow. Now that Charles was dead, her place and her son’s place were with his kindred. Besides, half the house now belonged to her, through Charles’ will. Last, the Confederacy needed every pair of hands for sewing, knitting, bandage rolling and nursing the wounded.

Charles’ Uncle Henry Hamilton, who lived in bachelor state at the Atlanta Hotel near the depot, also talked seriously to her on this subject. Uncle Henry was a short, pot-bellied, irascible old gentleman with a pink face, a shock of long silver hair and an utter lack of patience with feminine timidities and vaporings. It was for the latter reason that he was barely on speaking terms with his sister, Miss Pittypat. From childhood, they had been exact opposites in temperament and they had been further estranged by his objections to the manner in which she had reared Charles—“Making a damn sissy out of a soldier’s son!” Years before, he had so insulted her that now Miss Pitty never spoke of him except in guarded whispers and with so great reticence that a stranger would have thought the honest old lawyer a murderer, at the least. The insult had occurred on a day when Pitty wished to draw five hundred dollars from her estate, of which he was trustee, to invest in a non-existent gold mine. He had refused to permit it and stated heatedly that she had no more sense than a June bug and furthermore it gave him the fidgets to be around her longer than five minutes. Since that day, she only saw him formally, once a month, when Uncle Peter drove her to his office to get the housekeeping money. After these brief visits, Pitty always took to her bed for the rest of the day with tears and smelling salts. Melanie and Charles, who were on excellent terms with their uncle, had frequently offered to relieve her of this ordeal, but Pitty always set her babyish mouth firmly and refused. Henry was her cross and she must bear him. From this, Charles and Melanie could only infer that she took a profound pleasure in this occasional excitement, the only excitement in her sheltered life.

Uncle Henry liked Scarlett immediately because, he said, he could see that for all her silly affectations she had a few grains of sense. He was trustee, not only of Pitty’s and Melanie’s estates, but also of that left Scarlett by Charles. It came to Scarlett as a pleasant surprise that she was now a well-to-do young woman, for Charles had not only left her half of Aunt Pitty’s house but farm lands and town property as well. And the stores and warehouses along the railroad track near the depot, which were part of her inheritance, had tripled in value since the war began. It was when Uncle Henry was giving her an account of her property that he broached the matter of her permanent residence in Atlanta.

“When Wade Hampton comes of age, he’s going to be a rich young man,” he said. “The way Atlanta is growing his property will be ten times more valuable in twenty years, and it’s only right that the boy should be raised where his property is, so he can learn to take care of it—yes, and of Pitty’s and Melanie’s, too. He’ll be the only man of the Hamilton name left before long, for I won’t be here forever.”

As for Uncle Peter, he took it for granted that Scarlett had come to stay. It was inconceivable to him that Charles’ only son should be reared where he could not supervise the rearing. To all these arguments, Scarlett smiled but said nothing, unwilling to commit herself before learning how she would like Atlanta and constant association with her inlaws. She knew, too, that Gerald and Ellen would have to be won over. Moreover, now that she was away from Tara, she missed it dreadfully, missed the red fields and the springing green cotton and the sweet twilight silences. For the first time, she realized dimly what Gerald had meant when he said that the love of the land was in her blood.

So she gracefully evaded, for the time being, a definite answer as to the duration of her visit and slipped easily into the life of the red-brick house at the quiet end of Peachtree Street.

Living with Charles’ blood kin, seeing the home from which he came. Scarlett could now understand a little better the boy who had made her wife, widow and mother in such rapid succession. It was easy to see why he had been so shy, so unsophisticated, so idealistic. If Charles had inherited any of the qualities of the stern, fearless, hot-tempered soldier who had been his father, they had been obliterated in childhood by the ladylike atmosphere in which he had been reared. He had been devoted to the childlike Pitty and closer than brothers usually are to Melanie, and two more sweet, unworldly women could not be found.

Aunt Pittypat had been christened Sarah Jane Hamilton sixty years before, but since the long-past day when her doting father had fastened his nickname upon her, because of her airy, restless, pattering little feet, no one had called her anything else. In the years that followed that second christening, many changes had taken place in her that made the pet name incongruous. Of the swiftly scampering child, all that now remained were two tiny feet, inadequate to her weight, and a tendency to prattle happily and aimlessly. She was stout, pink-cheeked and silver-haired and always a little breathless from too tightly laced stays. She was unable to walk more than a block on the tiny feet which she crammed into too small slippers. She had a heart which fluttered at any excitement and she pampered it shamelessly, fainting at any provocation. Everyone knew that her swoons were generally mere ladylike pretenses but they loved her enough to refrain from saying so. Everyone loved her, spoiled her like a child and refused to take her seriously—everyone except her brother Henry.

She liked gossip better than anything else in the world, even more than she liked the pleasures of the table, and she prattled on for hours about other people’s affairs in a harmless kindly way. She had no memory for names, dates or places and frequently confused the actors in one Atlanta drama with the actors in another, which misled no one for no one was foolish enough to take seriously anything she said. No one ever told her anything really shocking or scandalous, for her spinster state must be protected even if she was sixty years old, and her friends were in a kindly conspiracy to keep her a sheltered and petted old child.

Melanie was like her aunt in many ways. She had her shyness, her sudden blushes, her modesty, but she did have common sense—“Of a sort, I’ll admit that,” Scarlett thought grudgingly. Like Aunt Pitty, Melanie had the face of a sheltered child who had never known anything but simplicity and kindness, truth and love, a child who had never looked upon harshness or evil and would not recognize them if she saw them. Because she had always been happy, she wanted everyone about her to be happy or, at least, pleased with themselves. To this end, she always saw the best in everyone and remarked kindly upon it. There was no servant so stupid that she did not find some redeeming trait of loyalty and kind-heartedness, no girl so ugly and disagreeable that she could not discover grace of form or nobility of character in her, and no man so worthless or so boring that she did not view him in the light of his possibilities rather than his actualities.

Because of these qualities that came sincerely and spontaneously from a generous heart, everyone flocked about her, for who can resist the charm of one who discovers in others admirable qualities undreamed of even by himself? She had more girl friends than anyone in town and more men friends too, though she had few beaux for she lacked the willfulness and selfishness that go far toward trapping men’s hearts.

What Melanie did was no more than all Southern girls were taught to do—to make those about them feel at ease and pleased with themselves. It was this happy feminine conspiracy which made Southern society so pleasant. Women knew that a land where men were contented, uncontradicted and safe in possession of unpunctured vanity was likely to be a very pleasant place for women to live. So, from the cradle to the grave, women strove to make men pleased with themselves, and the satisfied men repaid lavishly with gallantry and adoration. In fact, men willingly gave the ladies everything in the world except credit for having intelligence. Scarlett exercised the same charms as Melanie but with a studied artistry and consummate skill. The difference between the two girls lay in the fact that Melanie spoke kind and flattering words from a desire to make people happy, if only temporarily, and Scarlett never did it except to further her own aims.

From the two he loved best, Charles had received no toughening influences, learned nothing of harshness or reality, and the home in which he grew to manhood was as soft as a bird’s nest. It was such a quiet, old-fashioned, gentle home compared with Tara. To Scarlett, this house cried out for the masculine smells of brandy, tobacco and Macassar oil, for hoarse voices and occasional curses, for guns, for whiskers, for saddles and bridles and for hounds underfoot. She missed the sounds of quarreling voices that were always heard at Tara when Ellen’s back was turned, Mammy quarreling with Pork, Rosa and Teena bickering, her own acrimonious arguments with Suellen, Gerald’s bawling threats. No wonder Charles had been a sissy, coming from a home like this. Here, excitement never entered in, voices were never raised, everyone deferred gently to the opinions of others, and, in the end, the black grizzled autocrat in the kitchen had his way. Scarlett, who had hoped for a freer rein when she escaped Mammy’s supervision, discovered to her sorrow that Uncle Peter’s standards of ladylike conduct, especially for Mist’ Charles’ widow, were even stricter than Mammy’s.

In such a household, Scarlett came back to herself, and almost before she realized it her spirits rose to normal. She was only seventeen, she had superb health and energy, and Charles’ people did their best to make her happy. If they fell a little short of this, it was not their fault, for no one could take out of her heart the ache that throbbed whenever Ashley’s name was mentioned. And Melanie mentioned it so often! But Melanie and Pitty were tireless in planning ways to soothe the sorrow under which they thought she labored. They put their own grief into the background in order to divert her. They fussed about her food and her hours for taking afternoon naps and for taking carriage rides. They not only admired her extravagantly, her high-spiritedness, her figure, her tiny hands and feet, her white skin, but they said so frequently, petting, hugging and kissing her to emphasize their loving words.

Scarlett did not care for the caresses, but she basked in the compliments. No one at Tara had ever said so many charming things about her. In fact, Mammy had spent her time deflating her conceit. Little Wade was no longer an annoyance, for the family, black and white, and the neighbors idolized him and there was a never-ceasing rivalry as to whose lap he should occupy. Melanie especially doted on him. Even in his worst screaming spells, Melanie thought him adorable and said so, adding, “Oh, you precious darling! I just wish you were mine!”

Sometimes Scarlett found it hard to dissemble her feelings, for she still thought Aunt Pitty the silliest of old ladies and her vagueness and vaporings irritated her unendurably. She disliked Melanie with a jealous dislike that grew as the days went by, and sometimes she had to leave the room abruptly when Melanie, beaming with loving pride, spoke of Ashley or read his letters aloud. But, all in all, life went on as happily as was possible under the circumstances. Atlanta was more interesting than Savannah or Charleston or Tara and it offered so many strange war-time occupations she had little time to think or mope. But, sometimes, when she blew out the candle and burrowed her head into the pillow, she sighed and thought: “If only Ashley wasn’t married! If only I didn’t have to nurse in that plagued hospital! Oh, if only I could have some beaux!”

She had immediately loathed nursing but she could not escape this duty because she was on both Mrs. Meade’s and Mrs. Merriwether’s committees. That meant four mornings a week in the sweltering, stinking hospital with her hair tied up in a towel and a hot apron covering her from neck to feet. Every matron, old or young, in Atlanta nursed and did it with an enthusiasm that seemed to Scarlett little short of fanatic. They took it for granted that she was imbued with their own patriotic fervor and would have been shocked to know how slight an interest in the war she had. Except for the ever-present torment that Ashley might be killed, the war interested her not at all, and nursing was something she did simply because she didn’t know how to get out of it.

Certainly there was nothing romantic about nursing. To her, it meant groans, delirium, death and smells. The hospitals were filled with dirty, bewhiskered, verminous men who smelled terribly and bore on their bodies wounds hideous enough to turn a Christian’s stomach. The hospitals stank of gangrene, the odor assaulting her nostrils long before the doors were reached, a sickish sweet smell that clung to her hands and hair and haunted her in her dreams. Flies, mosquitoes and gnats hovered in droning, singing swarms over the wards, tormenting the men to curses and weak sobs; and Scarlett, scratching her own mosquito bites, swung palmetto fans until her shoulders ached and she wished that all the men were dead.

Melanie, however, did not seem to mind the smells, the wounds or the nakedness, which Scarlett thought strange in one who was the most timorous and modest of women. Sometimes when holding basins and instruments while Dr. Meade cut out gangrened flesh, Melanie looked very white. And once, alter such an operation, Scarlett found her in the linen closet vomiting quietly into a towel. But as long as she was where the wounded could see her, she was gentle, sympathetic and cheerful, and the men in the hospitals called her an angel of mercy. Scarlett would have liked that title too, but it involved touching men crawling with lice, running fingers down throats of unconscious patients to see if they were choking on swallowed tobacco quids, bandaging stumps and picking maggots out of festering flesh. No, she did not like nursing!

Perhaps it might have been endurable if she had been permitted to use her charms on the convalescent men, for many of them were attractive and well born, but this she could not do in her widowed state. The young ladies of the town, who were not permitted to nurse for fear they would see sights unfit for virgin eyes, had the convalescent wards in their charge. Unhampered by matrimony or widowhood, they made vast inroads on the convalescents, and even the least attractive girls, Scarlett observed gloomily, had no difficulty in getting engaged.

With the exception of desperately ill and severely wounded men, Scarlett’s was a completely feminized world and this irked her, for she neither liked nor trusted her own sex and, worse still, was always bored by it. But on three afternoons a week she had to attend sewing circles and bandage-rolling committees of Melanie’s friends. The girls who had all known Charles were very kind and attentive to her at these gatherings, especially Fanny Elsing and Maybelle Merriwether, the daughters of the town dowagers. But they treated her deferentially, as if she were old and finished, and their constant chatter of dances and beaux made her both envious of their pleasures and resentful that her widowhood barred her from such activities. Why, she was three times as attractive as Fanny and Maybelle! Oh, how unfair life was! How unfair that everyone should think her heart was in the grave when it wasn’t at all! It was in Virginia with Ashley!

But in spite of these discomforts, Atlanta pleased her very well. And her visit lengthened as the weeks slipped by.

}

Chapter 9

S

carlett sat in the window of her bedroom that midsummer morning and disconsolately watched the wagons and carriages full of girls, soldiers and chaperons ride gaily out Peachtree road in search of woodland decorations for the bazaar which was to be held that evening for the benefit of the hospitals. The red road lay checkered in shade and sun glare beneath the over-arching trees and the many hooves kicked up little red clouds of dust. One wagon, ahead of the others, bore four stout negroes with axes to cut evergreens and drag down the vines, and the back of this wagon was piled high with napkin-covered hampers, split-oak baskets of lunch and a dozen watermelons. Two of the black bucks were equipped with banjo and harmonica and they were rendering a spirited version of “If You Want to Have a Good Time, Jine the Cavalry.” Behind them streamed the merry cavalcade, girls cool in flowered cotton dresses, with light shawls, bonnets and mitts to protect their skins and little parasols held over their heads; elderly ladies placid and smiling amid the laughter and carriage-to-carriage calls and jokes; convalescents from the hospitals wedged in between stout chaperons and slender girls who made great fuss and to-do over them; officers on horseback idling at snail’s pace beside the carriages—wheels creaking, spurs jingling, gold braid gleaming, parasols bobbing, fans swishing, negroes singing. Everybody was riding out Peachtree road to gather greenery and have a picnic and melon cutting. Everybody, thought Scarlett, morosely, except me.

They all waved and called to her as they went by and she tried to respond with a good grace, but it was difficult. A hard little pain had started in her heart and was traveling slowly up toward her throat where it would become a lump and the lump would soon become tears. Everybody was going to the picnic except her. And everybody was going to the bazaar and the ball tonight except her. That is everybody except her and Pittypat and Melly and the other unfortunates in town who were in mourning. But Melly and Pittypat did not seem to mind. It had not even occurred to them to want to go. It had occurred to Scarlett. And she did want to go, tremendously.

It simply wasn’t fair. She had worked twice as hard as any girl in town, getting things ready for the bazaar. She had knitted socks and baby caps and afghans and mufflers and tatted yards of lace and painted china hair receivers and mustache cups. And she had embroidered half a dozen sofa-pillow cases with the Confederate flag on them. (The stars were a bit lopsided, to be sure, some of them being almost round and others having six or even seven points, but the effect was good.) Yesterday she had worked until she was worn out in the dusty old barn of an Armory draping yellow and pink and green cheesecloth on the booths that lined the walls. Under the supervision of the Ladies’ Hospital Committee, this was plain hard work and no fun at all. It was never fun to be around Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and Mrs. Whiting and have them boss you like you were one of the darkies. And have to listen to them brag about how popular their daughters were. And, worst of all, she had burned two blisters on her fingers helping Pittypat and Cookie make layer cakes for raffling.

And now, having worked like a field hand, she had to retire decorously when the fun was just beginning. Oh, it wasn’t fair that she should have a dead husband and a baby yelling in the next room and be out of everything that was pleasant. Just a little over a year ago, she was dancing and wearing bright clothes instead of this dark mourning and was practically engaged to three boys. She was only seventeen now and there was still a lot of dancing left in her feet. Oh, it wasn’t fair! Life was going past her, down a hot shady summer road, life with gray uniforms and jingling spurs and flowered organdie dresses and banjos playing. She tried not to smile and wave too enthusiastically to the men she knew best, the ones she’d nursed in the hospital, but it was hard to subdue her dimples, hard to look as though her heart were in the grave—when it wasn’t.

Her bowing and waving were abruptly halted when Pittypat entered the room, panting as usual from climbing the stairs, and jerked her away from the window unceremoniously.

“Have you lost your mind, honey, waving at men out of your bedroom window? I declare, Scarlett, I’m shocked! What would your mother say?”

“Well, they didn’t know it was my bedroom.”

“But they’d suspect it was your bedroom and that’s just as bad. Honey, you mustn’t do things like that. Everybody will be talking about you and saying you are fast—and anyway, Mrs. Merriwether knew it was your bedroom.”

“And I suppose she’ll tell all the boys, the old cat.”

“Honey, hush! Dolly Merriwether’s my best friend.”

“Well, she’s a cat just the same—oh, I’m sorry, Auntie, don’t cry! I forgot it was my bedroom window. I won’t do it again—I— I just wanted to see them go by. I wish I was going.”

“Honey!”

“Well, I do. I’m so tired of sitting at home.”

“Scarlett, promise me you won’t say things like that. People would talk so. They’d say you didn’t have the proper respect for poor Charlie—”

“Oh, Auntie, don’t cry!”

“Oh, now I’ve made you cry, too,” sobbed Pittypat, in a pleased way, fumbling in her skirt pocket for her handkerchief.

The hard little pain had at last reached Scarlett’s throat and she wailed out loud—not, as Pittypat thought, for poor Charlie but because the last sounds of the wheels and the laughter were dying away. Melanie rustled in from her room, a worried frown puckering her forehead, a brush in her hands, her usually tidy black hair, freed of its net, fluffing about her face in a mass of tiny curls and waves.

“Darlings! What is the matter?”

“Charlie!” sobbed Pittypat, surrendering utterly to the pleasure of her grief and burying her head on Melly’s shoulder.

“Oh,” said Melly, her lip quivering at the mention of her brother’s name. “Be brave, dear. Don’t cry. Oh, Scarlett!”

Scarlett had thrown herself on the bed and was sobbing at the top of her voice, sobbing for her lost youth and the pleasures of youth that were denied her, sobbing with the indignation and despair of a child who once could get anything she wanted by sobbing and now knows that sobbing can no longer help her. She burrowed her head in the pillow and cried and kicked her feet at the tufted counterpane.

“I might as well be dead!” she sobbed passionately. Before such an exhibition of grief, Pittypat’s easy tears ceased and Melly flew to the bedside to comfort her sister-inlaw.

“Dear, don’t cry! Try to think how much Charlie loved you and let that comfort you! Try to think of your darling baby.”

Indignation at being misunderstood mingled with Scarlett’s forlorn feeling of being out of everything and strangled all utterance. That was fortunate, for if she could have spoken she would have cried out truths couched in Gerald’s forthright words. Melanie patted her shoulder and Pittypat tiptoed heavily about the room pulling down the shades.

“Don’t do that!” shouted Scarlett, raising a red and swollen face from the pillow. “I’m not dead enough for you to pull down the shades—though I might as well be. Oh, do go away and leave me alone!”

She sank her face into the pillow again and, after a whispered conference, the two standing over her tiptoed out. She heard Melanie say to Pittypat in a low voice as they went down the stairs:

“Aunt Pitty, I wish you wouldn’t speak of Charles to her. You know how it always affects her. Poor thing, she gets that queer look and I know she’s trying not to cry. We mustn’t make it harder for her.”

Scarlett kicked the coverlet in impotent rage, trying to think of something bad enough to say.

“God’s nightgown!” she cried at last, and felt somewhat relieved. How could Melanie be content to stay at home and never have any fun and wear crepe for her brother when she was only eighteen years old? Melanie did not seem to know, or care, that life was riding by with jingling spurs.

“But she’s such a stick,” thought Scarlett, pounding the pillow. “And she never was popular like me, so she doesn’t miss the things I miss. And—and besides she’s got Ashley and I— I haven’t got anybody!” And at this fresh woe, she broke into renewed outcries.

She remained gloomily in her room until afternoon and then the sight of the returning picnickers with wagons piled high with pine boughs, vines and ferns did not cheer her. Everyone looked happily tired as they waved to her again and she returned their greetings drearily. Life was a hopeless affair and certainly not worth living.

Deliverance came in the form she least expected when, during the after-dinner-nap period, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing drove up. Startled at having callers at such an hour, Melanie, Scarlett and Aunt Pittypat roused themselves, hastily hooked their basques, smoothed their hair and descended to the parlor.

“Mrs. Bonnell’s children have the measles,” said Mrs. Merriwether abruptly, showing plainly that she held Mrs. Bonnell personally responsible for permitting such a thing to happen.

“And the McLure girls have been called to Virginia,” said Mrs. Elsing in her die-away voice, fanning herself languidly as if neither this nor anything else mattered very much. “Dallas McLure is wounded.”

“How dreadful!” chorused their hostesses. “Is poor Dallas—”

“No. Just through the shoulder,” said Mrs. Merriwether briskly. “But it couldn’t possibly have happened at a worse time. The girls are going North to bring him home. But, skies above, we haven’t time to sit here talking. We must hurry back to the Armory and get the decorating done. Pitty, we need you and Melly tonight to take Mrs. Bonnell’s and the McLure girls’ places.”

“Oh, but, Dolly, we can’t go.”

“Don’t say ‘can’t’ to me, Pittypat Hamilton,” said Mrs. Merriwether vigorously. “We need you to watch the darkies with the refreshments. That was what Mrs. Bonnell was to do. And Melly, you must take the McLure girls’ booth.”

“Oh, we just couldn’t—with poor Charlie dead only a—”

“I know how you feel but there isn’t any sacrifice too great for the Cause,” broke in Mrs. Elsing in a soft voice that settled matters.

“Oh, we’d love to help but—why can’t you get some sweet pretty girls to take the booths?”

Mrs. Merriwether snorted a trumpeting snort.

“I don’t know what’s come over the young people these days. They have no sense of responsibility. All the girls who haven’t already taken booths have more excuses than you could shake a stick at. Oh, they don’t fool me! They just don’t want to be hampered in making up to the officers, that’s all. And they’re afraid their new dresses won’t show off behind booth counters. I wish to goodness that blockade runner—what’s his name?”

“Captain Butler,” supplied Mrs. Elsing.

“I wish he’d bring in more hospital supplies and less hoop skirts and lace. If I’ve had to look at one dress today I’ve had to look at twenty dresses that he ran in. Captain Butler—I’m sick of the name. Now, Pitty, I haven’t time to argue. You must come. Everybody will understand. Nobody will see you in the back room anyway, and Melly won’t be conspicuous. The poor McLure girls’ booth is way down at the end and not very pretty so nobody will notice you.”

“I think we should go,” said Scarlett, trying to curb her eagerness and to keep her face earnest and simple. “It is the least we can do for the hospital.”

Neither of the visiting ladies had even mentioned her name, and they turned and looked sharply at her. Even in their extremity, they had not considered asking a widow of scarcely a year to appear at a social function. Scarlett bore their gaze with a wide-eyed childlike expression.

“I think we should go and help to make it a success, all of us. I think I should go in the booth with Melly because—well, I think it would look better for us both to be there instead of just one. Don’t you think so, Melly?”

“Well,” began Melly helplessly. The idea of appearing publicly at a social gathering while in mourning was so unheard of she was bewildered.

“Scarlett’s right,” said Mrs. Merriwether, observing signs of weakening. She rose and jerked her hoops into place. “Both of you—all of you must come. Now, Pitty, don’t start your excuses again. Just think how much the hospital needs money for new beds and drugs. And I know Charlie would like you to help the Cause he died for.”

“Well,” said Pittypat, helpless as always in the presence of a stronger personality, “if you think people will understand.”

“Too good to be true! Too good to be true!” said Scarlett’s joyful heart as she slipped unobtrusively into the pink-and-yellow-draped booth that was to have been the McLure girls’. Actually she was at a party! After a year’s seclusion, after crepe and hushed voices and nearly going crazy with boredom, she was actually at a party, the biggest party Atlanta had ever seen. And she could see people and many lights and hear music and view for herself the lovely laces and frocks and frills that the famous Captain Butler had run through the blockade on his last trip.

She sank down on one of the little stools behind the counter of the booth and looked up and down the long hall which, until this afternoon, had been a bare and ugly drill room. How the ladies must have worked today to bring it to its present beauty. It looked lovely. Every candle and candlestick in Atlanta must be in this hall tonight, she thought, silver ones with a dozen sprangling arms, china ones with charming figurines clustering their bases, old brass stands, erect and dignified, laden with candles of all sizes and colors, smelling fragrantly of bayberries, standing on the gun racks that ran the length of the hall, on the long flower-decked tables, on booth counters, even on the sills of the open windows where the draughts of warm summer air were just strong enough to make them flare.

In the center of the hall the huge ugly lamp, hanging from the ceiling by rusty chains, was completely transformed by twining ivy and wild grapevines that were already withering from the heat. The walls were banked with pine branches that gave out a spicy smell, making the corners of the room into pretty bowers where the chaperons and old ladies would sit. Long graceful ropes of ivy and grapevine and smilax were hung everywhere, in looping festoons on the walls, draped above the windows, twined in scallops all over the brightly colored cheesecloth booths. And everywhere amid the greenery, on flags and bunting, blazed the bright stars of the Confederacy on their background of red and blue.

The raised platform for the musicians was especially artistic. It was completely hidden from view by the banked greenery and starry bunting and Scarlett knew that every potted and tubbed plant in town was there, coleus, geranium, hydrangea, oleander, elephant ear—even Mrs. Elsing’s four treasured rubber plants, which were given posts of honor at the four corners.

At the other end of the hall from the platform, the ladies had eclipsed themselves. On this wall hung large pictures of President Davis and Georgia’s own “Little Alec” Stephens, Vice–President of the Confederacy. Above them was an enormous flag and, beneath, on long tables was the loot of the gardens of the town, ferns, banks of roses, crimson and yellow and white, proud sheaths of golden gladioli, masses of varicolored nasturtiums, tall stiff hollyhocks rearing deep maroon and creamy heads above the other flowers. Among them, candles burned serenely like altar fires. The two faces looked down on the scene, two faces as different as could be possible in two men at the helm of so momentous an undertaking: Davis with the flat cheeks and cold eyes of an ascetic, his thin proud lips set firmly; Stephens with dark burning eyes deep socketed in a face that had known nothing but sickness and pain and had triumphed over them with humor and with fire—two faces that were greatly loved.

The elderly ladies of the committee in whose hands rested the responsibility for the whole bazaar rustled in as importantly as full-rigged ships, hurried the belated young matrons and giggling girls into their booths, and then swept through the doors into the back rooms where the refreshments were being laid out. Aunt Pitty panted out after them.

The musicians clambered upon their platform, black, grinning, their fat cheeks already shining with perspiration, and began tuning their fiddles and sawing and whanging with their bows in anticipatory importance. Old Levi, Mrs. Merriwether’s coachman, who had led the orchestras for every bazaar, ball and wedding since Atlanta was named Marthasville, rapped with his bow for attention. Few except the ladies who were conducting the bazaar had arrived yet, but all eyes turned toward him. Then the fiddles, bull fiddles, accordions, banjos and knuckle-bones broke into a slow rendition of “Lorena”— too slow for dancing, the dancing would come later when the booths were emptied of their wares. Scarlett felt her heart beat faster as the sweet melancholy of the waltz came to her:

“The years creep slowly by, Lorena! The snow is on the grass again. The sun’s far down the sky, Lorena . . .”

One-two-three, one-two-three, dip-sway—three, turn—two-three. What a beautiful waltz! She extended her hands slightly, closed her eyes and swayed with the sad haunting rhythm. There was something about the tragic melody and Lorena’s lost love that mingled with her own excitement and brought a lump into her throat.

Then, as if brought into being by the waltz music, sounds floated in from the shadowy moonlit street below, the trample of horses’ hooves and the sound of carriage wheels, laughter on the warm sweet air and the soft acrimony of negro voices raised in argument over hitching places for the horses. There was confusion on the stairs and light-hearted merriment, the mingling of girls’ fresh voices with the bass notes of their escorts, airy cries of greeting and squeals of joy as girls recognized friends from whom they had parted only that afternoon.

Suddenly the hall burst into life. It was full of girls, girls who floated in butterfly bright dresses, hooped out enormously, lace pantalets peeping from beneath; round little white shoulders bare, and faintest traces of soft little bosoms showing above lace flounces; lace shawls carelessly hanging from arms; fans spangled and painted, fans of swan’s-down and peacock feathers, dangling at wrists by tiny velvet ribbons; girls with masses of golden curls about their necks and fringed gold earbobs that tossed and danced with their dancing curls. Laces and silks and braid and ribbons, all blockade run, all the more precious and more proudly worn because of it, finery flaunted with an added pride as an extra affront to the Yankees.

Not all the flowers of the town were standing in tribute to the leaders of the Confederacy. The smallest, the most fragrant blossoms bedecked the girls. Tea roses tucked behind pink ears, cape jessamine and bud roses in round little garlands over cascades of side curls, blossoms thrust demurely into satin sashes, flowers that before the night was over would find their way into the breast pockets of gray uniforms as treasured souvenirs.

There were so many uniforms in the crowd—so many uniforms on so many men whom Scarlett knew, men she had met on hospital cots, on the streets, at the drill ground. They were such resplendent uniforms, brave with shining buttons and dazzling with twined gold braid on cuffs and collars, the red and yellow and blue stripes on the trousers, for the different branches of the service, setting off the gray to perfection. Scarlet and gold sashes swung to and fro, sabers glittered and banged against shining boots, spurs rattled and jingled.

Such handsome men, thought Scarlett, with a swell of pride in her heart, as the men called greetings, waved to friends, bent low over the hands of elderly ladies. All of them were so young looking, even with their sweeping yellow mustaches and full black and brown beards, so handsome, so reckless, with their arms in slings, with head bandages startlingly white across sun-browned faces. Some of them were on crutches and how proud were the girls who solicitously slowed their steps to their escorts’ hopping pace! There was one gaudy splash of color among the uniforms that put the girls’ bright finery to shame and stood out in the crowd like a tropical bird—a Louisiana Zouave, with baggy blue and white striped pants, cream gaiters and tight little red jacket, a dark, grinning little monkey of a man, with his arm in a black silk sling. He was Maybelle Merriwether’s especial beau, Rene Picard. The whole hospital must have turned out, at least everybody who could walk, and all the men on furlough and sick leave and all the railroad and mail service and hospital and commissary departments between here and Macon. How pleased the ladies would be! The hospital should make a mint of money tonight.

There was a ruffle of drums from the street below, the tramp of feet, the admiring cries of coachmen. A bugle blared and a bass voice shouted the command to break ranks. In a moment, the Home Guard and the militia unit in their bright uniforms shook the narrow stairs and crowded into the room, bowing, saluting, shaking hands. There were boys in the Home Guard, proud to be playing at war, promising themselves they would be in Virginia this time next year, if the war would just last that long; old men with white beards, wishing they were younger, proud to march in uniform in the reflected glory of sons at the front. In the militia, there were many middle-aged men and some older men but there was a fair sprinkling of men of military age who did not carry themselves quite so jauntily as their elders or their juniors. Already people were beginning to whisper, asking why they were not with Lee.

How would they all get into the hall! It had seemed such a large place a few minutes before, and now it was packed, warm with summer-night odors of sachet and cologne water and hair pomade and burning bayberry candles, fragrant with flowers, faintly dusty as many feet trod the old drill floors. The din and hubbub of voices made it almost impossible to hear anything and, as if feeling the joy and excitement of the occasion, old Levi choked off “Lorena” in mid-bar, rapped sharply with his bow and, sawing away for dear life, the orchestra burst into “Bonnie Blue Flag.”

A hundred voices took it up, sang it, shouted it like a cheer. The Home Guard bugler, climbing onto the platform, caught up with the music just as the chorus began, and the high silver notes soared out thrillingly above the massed singing, causing goose bumps to break out on bare arms and cold chills of deeply felt emotion to fly down spines:

“Hurrah! Hurrah! For the Southern Rights, hurrah! Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag That bears a single star!”

They crashed into the second verse and Scarlett, singing with the rest, heard the high sweet soprano of Melanie mounting behind her, clear and true and thrilling as the bugle notes. Turning, she saw that Melly was standing with her hands clasped to her breast, her eyes closed, and tiny tears oozing from the corners. She smiled at Scarlett, whimsically, as the music ended, making a little moue of apology as she dabbed with her handkerchief.

“I’m so happy,” she whispered, “and so proud of the soldiers that I just can’t help crying about it.”

There was a deep, almost fanatic glow in her eyes that for a moment lit up her plain little face and made it beautiful.

The same look was on the faces of all the women as the song ended, tears of pride on cheeks, pink or wrinkled, smiles on lips, a deep hot glow in eyes, as they turned to their men, sweetheart to lover, mother to son, wife to husband. They were all beautiful with the blinding beauty that transfigures even the plainest woman when she is utterly protected and utterly loved and is giving back that love a thousandfold.

They loved their men, they believed in them, they trusted them to the last breaths of their bodies. How could disaster ever come to women such as they when their stalwart gray line stood between them and the Yankees? Had there ever been such men as these since the first dawn of the world, so heroic, so reckless, so gallant, so tender? How could anything but overwhelming victory come to a Cause as just and right as theirs? A Cause they loved as much as they loved their men, a Cause they served with their hands and their hearts, a Cause they talked about, thought about, dreamed about—a Cause to which they would sacrifice these men if need be, and bear their loss as proudly as the men bore their battle flags.

It was high tide of devotion and pride in their hearts, high tide of the Confederacy, for final victory was at hand. Stonewall Jackson’s triumphs in the Valley and the defeat of the Yankees in the Seven Days’ Battle around Richmond showed that clearly. How could it be otherwise with such leaders as Lee and Jackson? One more victory and the Yankees would be on their knees yelling for peace and the men would be riding home and there would be kissing and laughter. One more victory and the war was over!

Of course, there were empty chairs and babies who would never see their fathers’ faces and unmarked graves by lonely Virginia creeks and in the still mountains of Tennessee, but was that too great a price to pay for such a Cause? Silks for the ladies and tea and sugar were hard to get, but that was something to joke about. Besides, the dashing blockade runners were bringing in these very things under the Yankees’ disgruntled noses, and that made the possession of them many times more thrilling. Soon Raphael Semmes and the Confederate Navy would tend to those Yankee gunboats and the ports would be wide open. And England was coming in to help the Confederacy win the war, because the English mills were standing idle for want of Southern cotton. And naturally the British aristocracy sympathized with the Confederacy, as one aristocrat with another, against a race of dollar lovers like the Yankees.

So the women swished their silks and laughed and, looking on their men with hearts bursting with pride, they knew that love snatched in the face of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excitement that went with it.

When first she looked at the crowd, Scarlett’s heart had thump-thumped with the unaccustomed excitement of being at a party, but as she half-comprehendingly saw the high-hearted look on the faces about her, her joy began to evaporate. Every woman present was blazing with an emotion she did not feel. It bewildered and depressed her. Somehow, the ball did not seem so pretty nor the girls so dashing, and the white heat of devotion to the Cause that was still shining on every face seemed—why, it just seemed silly!

In a sudden flash of self-knowledge that made her mouth pop open with astonishment, she realized that she did not share with these women their fierce pride, their desire to sacrifice themselves and everything they had for the Cause. Before horror made her think: “No—no! I mustn’t think such things! They’re wrong—sinful,” she knew the Cause meant nothing at all to her and that she was bored with hearing other people talk about it with that fanatic look in their eyes. The Cause didn’t seem sacred to her. The war didn’t seem to be a holy affair, but a nuisance that killed men senselessly and cost money and made luxuries hard to get. She saw that she was tired of the endless knitting and the endless bandage rolling and lint picking that roughened the cuticle of her nails. And oh, she was so tired of the hospital! Tired and bored and nauseated with the sickening gangrene smells and the endless moaning, frightened by the look that coming death gave to sunken faces.

She looked furtively around her, as the treacherous, blasphemous thoughts rushed through her mind, fearful that someone might find them written clearly upon her face. Oh, why couldn’t she feel like those other women! They were whole hearted and sincere in their devotion to the Cause. They really meant everything they said and did. And if anyone should ever suspect that she—No, no one must ever know! She must go on making a pretense of enthusiasm and pride in the Cause which she could not feel, acting out her part of the widow of a Confederate officer who bears her grief bravely, whose heart is in the grave, who feels that her husband’s death meant nothing if it aided the Cause to triumph.

Oh, why was she different, apart from these loving women? She could never love anything or anyone so selflessly as they did. What a lonely feeling it was—and she had never been lonely either in body or spirit before. At first she tried to stifle the thoughts, but the hard self-honesty that lay at the base of her nature would not permit it. And so, while the bazaar went on, while she and Melanie waited on the customers who came to their booth, her mind was busily working, trying to justify herself to herself—a task which she seldom found difficult.

The other women were simply silly and hysterical with their talk of patriotism and the Cause, and the men were almost as bad with their talk of vital issues and States’ Rights. She, Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton, alone had good hard-headed Irish sense. She wasn’t going to make a fool out of herself about the Cause, but neither was she going to make a fool out of herself by admitting her true feelings. She was hard-headed enough to be practical about the situation, and no one would ever know how she felt. How surprised the bazaar would be if they knew what she really was thinking! How shocked if she suddenly climbed on the bandstand and declared that she thought the war ought to stop, so everybody could go home and tend to their cotton and there could be parties and beaux again and plenty of pale green dresses.

For a moment, her self-justification buoyed her up but still she looked about the hall with distaste. The McLure girls’ booth was inconspicuous, as Mrs. Merriwether had said, and there were long intervals when no one came to their corner and Scarlett had nothing to do but look enviously on the happy throng. Melanie sensed her moodiness but, crediting it to longing for Charlie, did not try to engage her in conversation. She busied herself arranging the articles in the booth in more attractive display, while Scarlett sat and looked glumly around the room. Even the banked flowers below the pictures of Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens displeased her.

“It looks like an altar,” she sniffed. “And the way they all carry on about those two, they might as well be the Father and the Son!” Then smitten with sudden fright at her irreverence she began hastily to cross herself by way of apology but caught herself in time.

“Well, it’s true,” she argued with her conscience. “Everybody carries on like they were holy and they aren’t anything but men, and mighty unattractive looking ones at that.”

Of course, Mr. Stephens couldn’t help how he looked for he had been an invalid all his life, but Mr. Davis—She looked up at the cameo clean, proud face. It was his goatee that annoyed her the most. Men should either be clean shaven, mustached or wear full beards.

“That little wisp looks like it was just the best he could do,” she thought, not seeing in his face the cold hard intelligence that was carrying the weight of a new nation.

No, she was not happy now, and at first she had been radiant with the pleasure of being in a crowd. Now just being present was not enough. She was at the bazaar but not a part of it. No one paid her any attention and she was the only young unmarried woman present who did not have a beau. And all her life she had enjoyed the center of the stage. It wasn’t fair! She was seventeen years old and her feet were patting the floor, wanting to skip and dance. She was seventeen years old and she had a husband lying at Oakland Cemetery and a baby in his cradle at Aunt Pittypat’s and everyone thought she should be content with her lot. She had a whiter bosom and a smaller waist and a tinier foot than any girl present, but for all they mattered she might just as well be lying beside Charles with “Beloved Wife of” carved over her.

She wasn’t a girl who could dance and flirt and she wasn’t a wife who could sit with other wives and criticize the dancing and flirting girls. And she wasn’t old enough to be a widow. Widows should be old—so terribly old they didn’t want to dance and flirt and be admired. Oh, it wasn’t fair that she should have to sit here primly and be the acme of widowed dignity and propriety when she was only seventeen. It wasn’t fair that she must keep her voice low and her eyes cast modestly down, when men, attractive ones, too, came to their booth.

Every girl in Atlanta was three deep in men. Even the plainest girls were carrying on like belles—and, oh, worst of all, they were carrying on in such lovely, lovely dresses!

Here she sat like a crow with hot black taffeta to her wrists and buttoned up to her chin, with not even a hint of lace or braid, not a jewel except Ellen’s onyx mourning brooch, watching tacky-looking girls hanging on the arms of good-looking men. All because Charles Hamilton had had the measles. He didn’t even die in a fine glow of gallantry in battle, so she could brag about him.

Rebelliously she leaned her elbows on the counter and looked at the crowd, flouting Mammy’s oft-repeated admonition against leaning on elbows and making them ugly and wrinkled. What did it matter if they did get ugly? She’d probably never get a chance to show them again. She looked hungrily at the frocks floating by, butter-yellow watered silks with garlands of rosebuds; pink satins with eighteen flounces edged with tiny black velvet ribbons; baby blue taffeta, ten yards in the skirt and foamy with cascading lace; exposed bosoms; seductive flowers. Maybelle Merriwether went toward the next booth on the arm of the Zouave, in an apple-green tarlatan so wide that it reduced her waist to nothingness. It was showered and flounced with cream-colored Chantilly lace that had come from Charleston on the last blockader, and Maybelle was flaunting it as saucily as if she and not the famous Captain Butler had run the blockade.

“How sweet I’d look in that dress,” thought Scarlett, a savage envy in her heart. “Her waist is as big as a cow’s. That green is just my color and it would make my eyes look—Why will blondes try to wear that color? Her skin looks as green as an old cheese. And to think I’ll never wear that color again, not even when I do get out of mourning. No, not even if I do manage to get married again. Then I’ll have to wear tacky old grays and tans and lilacs.”

For a brief moment she considered the unfairness of it all. How short was the time for fun, for pretty clothes, for dancing, for coquetting! Only a few, too few years! Then you married and wore dull-colored dresses and had babies that ruined your waist line and sat in corners at dances with other sober matrons and only emerged to dance with your husband or with old gentlemen who stepped on your feet. If you didn’t do these things, the other matrons talked about you and then your reputation was ruined and your family disgraced. It seemed such a terrible waste to spend all your little girlhood learning how to be attractive and how to catch men and then only use the knowledge for a year or two. When she considered her training at the hands of Ellen and Mammy, she knew it had been thorough and good because it had always reaped results. There were set rules to be followed, and if you followed them success crowned your efforts.

With old ladies you were sweet and guileless and appeared as simple minded as possible, for old ladies were sharp and they watched girls as jealously as cats, ready to pounce on any indiscretion of tongue or eye. With old gentlemen, a girl was pert and saucy and almost, but not quite, flirtatious, so that the old fools’ vanities would be tickled. It made them feel devilish and young and they pinched your cheek and declared you were a minx. And, of course, you always blushed on such occasions, otherwise they would pinch you with more pleasure than was proper and then tell their sons that you were fast.

With young girls and young married women, you slopped over with sugar and kissed them every time you met them, even if it was ten times a day. And you put your arms about their waists and suffered them to do the same to you, no matter how much you disliked it. You admired their frocks or their babies indiscriminately and teased about beaux and complimented husbands and giggled modestly and denied that you had any charms at all compared with theirs. And, above all, you never said what you really thought about anything, any more than they said what they really thought.

Other women’s husbands you let severely alone, even if they were your own discarded beaux, and no matter how temptingly attractive they were. If you were too nice to young husbands, their wives said you were fast and you got a bad reputation and never caught any beaux of your own.

But with young bachelors—ah, that was a different matter! You could laugh softly at them and when they came flying to see why you laughed, you could refuse to tell them and laugh harder and keep them around indefinitely trying to find out. You could promise, with your eyes, any number of exciting things that would make a man maneuver to get you alone. And, having gotten you alone, you could be very, very hurt or very, very angry when he tried to kiss you. You could make him apologize for being a cur and forgive him so sweetly that he would hang around trying to kiss you a second time. Sometimes, but not often, you did let him kiss you. (Ellen and Mammy had not taught her that but she learned it was effective.) Then you cried and declared you didn’t know what had come over you and that he couldn’t ever respect you again. Then he had to dry your eyes and usually he proposed, to show just how much he did respect you. And then there were—Oh, there were so many things to do to bachelors and she knew them all, the nuance of the sidelong glance, the half-smile behind the fan, the swaying of the hips so that skirts swung like a bell, the tears, the laughter, the flattery, the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the tricks that never failed to work—except with Ashley.

No, it didn’t seem right to learn all these smart tricks, use them so briefly and then put them away forever. How wonderful it would be never to marry but to go on being lovely in pale green dresses and forever courted by handsome men. But, if you went on too long, you got to be an old maid like India Wilkes and everyone said “poor thing” in that smug hateful way. No, after all it was better to marry and keep your self-respect even if you never had any more fun.

Oh, what a mess life was! Why had she been such an idiot as to marry Charles of all people and have her life end at sixteen?

Her indignant and hopeless reverie was broken when the crowd began pushing back against the walls, the ladies carefully holding their hoops so that no careless contact should turn them up against their bodies and show more pantalets than was proper. Scarlett tiptoed above the crowd and saw the captain of the militia mounting the orchestra platform. He shouted orders and half of the Company fell into line. For a few minutes they went through a brisk drill that brought perspiration to their foreheads and cheers and applause from the audience. Scarlett clapped her hands dutifully with the rest and, as the soldiers pushed forward toward the punch and lemonade booths after they were dismissed, she turned to Melanie, feeling that she had better begin her deception about the Cause as soon as possible.

“They looked fine, didn’t they?” she said.

Melanie was fussing about with the knitted things on the counter.

“Most of them would look a lot finer in gray uniforms and in Virginia,” she said, and she did not trouble to lower her voice.

Several of the proud mothers of members of the militia were standing close by and overheard the remark. Mrs. Guinan turned scarlet and then white, for her twenty-five-year-old Willie was in the company.

Scarlett was aghast at such words coming from Melly of all people.

“Why, Melly!”

“You know it’s true, Scarlet. I don’t mean the little boys and the old gentlemen. But a lot of the militia are perfectly able to tote a rifle and that’s what they ought to be doing this minute.”

“But—but—” began Scarlett, who had never considered the matter before. “Somebody’s got to stay home to—” What was it Willie Guinan had told her by way of excusing his presence in Atlanta? “Somebody’s got to stay home to protect the state from invasion.”

“Nobody’s invading us and nobody’s going to,” said Melly coolly, looking toward a group of the militia. “And the best way to keep out invaders is to go to Virginia and beat the Yankees there. And as for all this talk about the militia staying here to keep the darkies from rising—why, it’s the silliest thing I ever heard of. Why should our people rise? It’s just a good excuse for cowards. I’ll bet we could lick the Yankees in a month if all the militia of all the states went to Virginia. So there!”

“Why, Melly!” cried Scarlett again, staring.

Melly’s soft dark eyes were flashing angrily. “My husband wasn’t afraid to go and neither was yours. And I’d rather they’d both be dead than here at home—Oh, darling, I’m sorry. How thoughtless and cruel of me!”

She stroked Scarlett’s arm appealingly and Scarlett stared at her. But it was not of dead Charles she was thinking. It was of Ashley. Suppose he too were to die? She turned quickly and smiled automatically as Dr. Meade walked up to their booth.

“Well, girls,” he greeted them, “it was nice of you to come. I know what a sacrifice it must have been for you to come out tonight. But it’s all for the Cause. And I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve a surprise way for making some more money tonight for the hospital, but I’m afraid some of the ladies are going to be shocked about it.”

He stopped and chuckled as he tugged at his gray goatee.

“Oh, what? Do tell!”

“On second thought I believe I’ll keep you guessing, too. But you girls must stand up for me if the church members want to run me out of town for doing it. However, it’s for the hospital. You’ll see. Nothing like this has ever been done before.”

He went off pompously toward a group of chaperons in one corner, and just as the two girls had turned to each other to discuss the possibilities of the secret, two old gentlemen bore down on the booth, declaring in loud voices that they wanted ten miles of tatting. Well, after all, old gentlemen were better than no gentlemen at all, thought Scarlett, measuring out the tatting and submitting demurely to being chucked under the chin. The old blades charged off toward the lemonade booth and others took their places at the counter. Their booth did not have so many customers as did the other booths where the tootling laugh of Maybelle Merriwether sounded and Fanny Elsing’s giggles and the Whiting girls’ repartee made merriment. Melly sold useless stuff to men who could have no possible use for it as quietly and serenely as a shopkeeper, and Scarlett patterned her conduct on Melly’s.

There were crowds in front of every other counter but theirs, girls chattering, men buying. The few who came to them talked about how they went to the university with Ashley and what a fine soldier he was or spoke in respectful tones of Charles and how great a loss to Atlanta his death had been.

Then the music broke into the rollicking strains of “Johnny Booker, he’p dis Nigger!” and Scarlett thought she would scream. She wanted to dance. She wanted to dance. She looked across the floor and tapped her foot to the music and her green eyes blazed so eagerly that they fairly snapped. All the way across the floor, a man, newly come and standing in the doorway, saw them, started in recognition and watched closely the slanting eyes in the sulky, rebellious face. Then he grinned to himself as he recognized the invitation that any male could read.

He was dressed in black broadcloth, a tall man, towering over the officers who stood near him, bulky in the shoulders but tapering to a small waist and absurdly small feet in varnished boots. His severe black suit, with fine ruffled shirt and trousers smartly strapped beneath high insteps, was oddly at variance with his physique and face, for he was foppishly groomed, the clothes of a dandy on a body that was powerful and latently dangerous in its lazy grace. His hair was jet black, and his black mustache was small and closely clipped, almost foreign looking compared with the dashing, swooping mustaches of the cavalrymen near by. He looked, and was, a man of lusty and unashamed appetites. He had an air of utter assurance, of displeasing insolence about him, and there was a twinkle of malice in his bold eyes as he stared at Scarlett, until finally, feeling his gaze, she looked toward him.

Somewhere in her mind, the bell of recognition rang, but for the moment she could not recall who he was. But he was the first man in months who had displayed an interest in her, and she threw him a gay smile. She made a little curtsy as he bowed, and then, as he straightened and started toward her with a peculiarly lithe Indian-like gait, her hand went to her mouth in horror, for she knew who he was.

Thunderstruck, she stood as if paralyzed while he made his way through the crowd. Then she turned blindly, bent on flight into the refreshment rooms, but her skirt caught on a nail of the booth. She jerked furiously at it, tearing it and, in an instant, he was beside her.

“Permit me,” he said bending over and disentangling the flounce. “I hardly hoped that you would recall me, Miss O’Hara.”

His voice was oddly pleasant to the ear, the well-modulated voice of a gentleman, resonant and overlaid with the flat slow drawl of the Charlestonian.

She looked up at him imploringly, her face crimson with the shame of their last meeting, and met two of the blackest eyes she had ever seen, dancing in merciless merriment. Of all the people in the world to turn up here, this terrible person who had witnessed that scene with Ashley which still gave her nightmares; this odious wretch who ruined girls and was not received by nice people; this despicable man who had said, and with good cause, that she was not a lady.

At the sound of his voice, Melanie turned and for the first time in her life Scarlett thanked God for the existence of her sister-inlaw.

“Why—it’s—it’s Mr. Rhett Butler, isn’t it?” said Melanie with a little smile, putting out her hand. “I met you—”

“On the happy occasion of the announcement of your betrothal,” he finished, bending over her hand. “It is kind of you to recall me.”

“And what are you doing so far from Charleston, Mr. Butler?”

“A boring matter of business, Mrs. Wilkes. I will be in and out of your town from now on. I find I must not only bring in goods but see to the disposal of them.”

“Bring in-” began Melly, her brow wrinkling, and then she broke into a delighted smile. “Why, you—you must be the famous Captain Butler we’ve been hearing so much about—the blockade runner. Why, every girl here is wearing dresses you brought in. Scarlett, aren’t you thrilled—what’s the matter, dear? Are you faint? Do sit down.”

Scarlett sank to the stool, her breath coming so rapidly she feared the lacings of her stays would burst. Oh, what a terrible thing to happen! She had never thought to meet this man again. He picked up her black fan from the counter and began fanning her solicitously, too solicitously, his face grave but his eyes still dancing.

“It is quite warm in here,” he said. “No wonder Miss O’Hara is faint. May I lead you to a window?”

“No,” said Scarlett, so rudely that Melly stared.

“She is not Miss O’Hara any longer,” said Melly. “She is Mrs. Hamilton. She is my sister now,” and Melly bestowed one of her fond little glances on her. Scarlett felt that she would strangle at the expression on Captain Butler’s swarthy piratical face.

“I am sure that is a great gain to two charming ladies,” said he, making a slight bow. That was the kind of remark all men made, but when he said it it seemed to her that he meant just the opposite.

“Your husbands are here tonight, I trust, on this happy occasion? It would be a pleasure to renew acquaintances.”

“My husband is in Virginia,” said Melly with a proud lift of her head. “But Charles—” Her voice broke.

“He died in camp,” said Scarlett flatly. She almost snapped the words. Would this creature never go away? Melly looked at her, startled, and the Captain made a gesture of self-reproach.

“My dear ladies—how could I! You must forgive me. But permit a stranger to offer the comfort of saying that to die for one’s country is to live forever.”

Melanie smiled at him through sparkling tears while Scarlett felt the fox of wrath and impotent hate gnaw at her vitals. Again he had made a graceful remark, the kind of compliment any gentleman would pay under such circumstances, but he did not mean a word of it. He was jeering at her. He knew she hadn’t loved Charles. And Melly was just a big enough fool not to see through him. Oh, please God, don’t let anybody else see through him, she thought with a start of terror. Would he tell what he knew? Of course he wasn’t a gentleman and there was no telling what men would do when they weren’t gentlemen. There was no standard to judge them by. She looked up at him and saw that his mouth was pulled down at the corners in mock sympathy, even while he swished the fan. Something in his look challenged her spirit and brought her strength back in a surge of dislike. Abruptly she snatched the fan from his hand.

“I’m quite all right,” she said tartly. “There’s no need to blow my hair out of place.”

“Scarlett, darling! Captain Butler, you must forgive her. She—she isn’t herself when she hears poor Charlie’s name spoken—and perhaps, after all, we shouldn’t have come here tonight. We’re still in mourning, you see, and it’s quite a strain on her—all this gaiety and music, poor child.”

“I quite understand,” he said with elaborate gravity, but as he turned and gave Melanie a searching look that went to the bottom of her sweet worried eyes, his expression changed, reluctant respect and gentleness coming over his dark face. “I think you’re a courageous little lady, Mrs. Wilkes.”

“Not a word about me!” thought Scarlett indignantly, as Melly smiled in confusion and answered,

“Dear me, no, Captain Butler! The hospital committee just had to have us for this booth because at the last minute—A pillow case? Here’s a lovely one with a flag on it.”

She turned to three cavalrymen who appeared at her counter. For a moment, Melanie thought how nice Captain Butler was. Then she wished that something more substantial than cheesecloth was between her skirt and the spittoon that stood just outside the booth, for the aim of the horsemen with amber streams of tobacco juice was not so unerring as with their long horse pistols. Then she forgot about the Captain, Scarlett and the spittoons as more customers crowded to her.

Scarlett sat quietly on the stool fanning herself, not daring to look up, wishing Captain Butler back on the deck of his ship where he belonged.

“Your husband has been dead long?”

“Oh, yes, a long time. Almost a year.”

“An aeon, I’m sure.”

Scarlett was not sure what an aeon was, but there was no mistaking the baiting quality of his voice, so she said nothing.

“Had you been married long? Forgive my questions but I have been away from this section for so long.”

“Two months,” said Scarlett, unwillingly.

“A tragedy, no less,” his easy voice continued.

Oh, damn him, she thought violently. If he was any other man in the world I could simply freeze up and order him off. But he knows about Ashley and he knows I didn’t love Charlie. And my hands are tied. She said nothing, still looking down at her fan.

“And this is your first social appearance?”

“I know it looks quite odd,” she explained rapidly. “But the McLure girls who were to take this booth were called away and there was no one else, so Melanie and I—”

“No sacrifice is too great for the Cause.”

Why, that was what Mrs. Elsing had said, but when she said it it didn’t sound the same way. Hot words started to her lips but she choked them back. After all, she was here, not for the Cause, but because she was tired of sitting home.

“I have always thought,” he said reflectively, “that the system of mourning, of immuring women in crepe for the rest of their lives and forbidding them normal enjoyment is just as barbarous as the Hindu suttee.”

“Settee?”

He laughed and she blushed for her ignorance. She hated people who used words unknown to her.

“In India, when a man dies he is burned, instead of buried, and his wife always climbs on the funeral pyre and is burned with him.”

“How dreadful! Why do they do it? Don’t the police do anything about it?”

“Of course not. A wife who didn’t burn herself would be a social outcast. All the worthy Hindu matrons would talk about her for not behaving as a well-bred lady should—precisely as those worthy matrons in the corner would talk about you, should you appear tonight in a red dress and lead a reel. Personally, I think suttee much more merciful than our charming Southern custom of burying widows alive!”

“How dare you say I’m buried alive!”

“How closely women crutch the very chains that bind them! You think the Hindu custom barbarous—but would you have had the courage to appear here tonight if the Confederacy hadn’t needed you?”

Arguments of this character were always confusing to Scarlett. His were doubly confusing because she had a vague idea there was truth in them. But now was the time to squelch him.

“Of course, I wouldn’t have come. It would have been—well, disrespectful to—it would have seemed as if I hadn’t lov—”

His eyes waited on her words, cynical amusement in them, and she could not go on. He knew she hadn’t loved Charlie and he wouldn’t let her pretend to the nice polite sentiments that she should express. What a terrible, terrible thing it was to have to do with a man who wasn’t a gentleman. A gentleman always appeared to believe a lady even when he knew she was lying. That was Southern chivalry. A gentleman always obeyed the rules and said the correct things and made life easier for a lady. But this man seemed not to care for rules and evidently enjoyed talking of things no one ever talked about.

“I am waiting breathlessly.”

“I think you are horrid,” she said, helplessly, dropping her eyes.

He leaned down across the counter until his mouth was near her ear and hissed, in a very creditable imitation of the stage villains who appeared infrequently at the Athenaeum Hall: “Fear not, fair lady! Your guilty secret is safe with me!”

“Oh,” she whispered, feverishly, “how can you say such things!”

“I only thought to ease your mind. What would you have me say? ‘Be mine, beautiful female, or I will reveal all?’”

She met his eyes unwillingly and saw they were as teasing as a small boy’s. Suddenly she laughed. It was such a silly situation, after all. He laughed too, and so loudly that several of the chaperons in the corner looked their way. Observing how good a time Charles Hamilton’s widow appeared to be having with a perfect stranger, they put their heads together disapprovingly.

There was a roll of drums and many voices cried “Sh!” as Dr. Meade mounted the platform and spread out his arms for quiet.

“We must all give grateful thanks to the charming ladies whose indefatigable and patriotic efforts have made this bazaar not only a pecuniary success,” he began, “but have transformed this rough hall into a bower of loveliness, a fit garden for the charming rosebuds I see about me.”

Everyone clapped approvingly.

“The ladies have given their best, not only of their time but of the labor of their hands, and these beautiful objects in the booths are doubly beautiful, made as they are by the fair hands of our charming Southern women.”

There were more shouts of approval, and Rhett Butler who had been lounging negligently against the counter at Scarlett’s side whispered: “Pompous goat, isn’t he?”

Startled, at first horrified, at this lese majesty toward Atlanta’s most beloved citizen, she stared reprovingly at him. But the doctor did look like a goat with his gray chin whiskers wagging away at a great rate, and with difficulty she stifled a giggle.

“But these things are not enough. The good ladies of the hospital committee, whose cool hands have soothed many a suffering brow and brought back from the jaws of death our brave men wounded in the bravest of all Causes, know our needs. I will not enumerate them. We must have more money to buy medical supplies from England, and we have with us tonight the intrepid captain who has so successfully run the blockade for a year and who will run it again to bring us the drugs we need. Captain Rhett Butler!”

Though caught unawares, the blockader made a graceful bow—too graceful, thought Scarlett, trying to analyze it. It was almost as if he overdid his courtesy because his contempt for everybody present was so great. There was a loud burst of applause as he bowed and a craning of necks from the ladies in the corner. So that was who poor Charles Hamilton’s widow was carrying on with! And Charlie hardly dead a year!

“We need more gold and I am asking you for it,” the doctor continued. “I am asking a sacrifice but a sacrifice so small compared with the sacrifices our gallant men in gray are making that it will seem laughably small. Ladies, I want your jewelry. I want your jewelry? No, the Confederacy wants your jewelry, the Confederacy calls for it and I know no one will hold back. How fair a gem gleams on a lovely wrist! How beautifully gold brooches glitter on the bosoms of our patriotic women! But how much more beautiful is sacrifice than all the gold and gems of the Ind. The gold will be melted and the stones sold and the money used to buy drugs and other medical supplies. Ladies, there will pass among you two of our gallant wounded, with baskets and—” But the rest of his speech was lost in the storm and tumult of clapping hands and cheering voices.

Scarlett’s first thought was one of deep thankfulness that mourning forbade her wearing her precious earbobs and the heavy gold chain that had been Grandma Robillard’s and the gold and black enameled bracelets and the garnet brooch. She saw the little Zouave, a split-oak basket over his unwounded arm, making the rounds of the crowd on her side of the hall and saw women, old and young, laughing, eager, tugging at bracelets, squealing in pretended pain as earrings came from pierced flesh, helping each other undo stiff necklace clasps, unpinning brooches from bosoms. There was a steady little clink-clink of metal on metal and cries of “Wait—wait! I’ve got it unfastened now. There!” Maybelle Merriwether was pulling off her lovely twin bracelets from above and below her elbows. Fanny Elsing, crying “Mamma, may I?” was tearing from her curls the seed-pearl ornament set in heavy gold which had been in the family for generations. As each offering went into the basket, there was applause and cheering.

The grinning little man was coming to their booth now, his basket heavy on his arm, and as he passed Rhett Butler a handsome gold cigar case was thrown carelessly into the basket. When he came to Scarlett and rested his basket upon the counter, she shook her head throwing wide her hands to show that she had nothing to give. It was embarrassing to be the only person present who was giving nothing. And then she saw the bright gleam of her wide gold wedding ring.

For a confused moment she tried to remember Charles’ face—how he had looked when he slipped it on her finger. But the memory was blurred, blurred by the sudden feeling of irritation that memory of him always brought to her. Charles—he was the reason why life was over for her, why she was an old woman.

With a sudden wrench she seized the ring but it stuck. The Zouave was moving toward Melanie.

“Wait!” cried Scarlett. “I have something for you!” The ring came off and, as she started to throw it into the basket, heaped up with chains, watches, rings, pins and bracelets, she caught Rhett Butler’s eye. His lips were twisted in a slight smile. Defiantly, she tossed the ring onto the top of the pile.

“Oh, my darling!” whispered Molly, clutching her arm, her eyes blazing with love and pride. “You brave, brave girl! Wait—please, wait, Lieutenant Picard! I have something for you, too!”

She was tugging at her own wedding ring, the ring Scarlett knew had never once left that finger since Ashley put it there. Scarlett knew, as no one did, how much it meant to her. It came off with difficulty and for a brief instant was clutched tightly in the small palm. Then it was laid gently on the pile of jewelry. The two girls stood looking after the Zouave who was moving toward the group of elderly ladies in the corner, Scarlett defiant, Melanie with a look more pitiful than tears. And neither expression was lost on the man who stood beside them.

“If you hadn’t been brave enough to do it, I would never have been either,” said Melly, putting her arm about Scarlett’s waist and giving her a gentle squeeze. For a moment Scarlett wanted to shake her off and cry “Name of God!” at the top of her lungs, as Gerald did when he was irritated, but she caught Rhett Butler’s eye and managed a very sour smile. It was annoying the way Melly always misconstrued her motives—but perhaps that was far preferable to having her suspect the truth.

“What a beautiful gesture,” said Rhett Butler, softly. “It is such sacrifices as yours that hearten our brave lads in gray.”

Hot words bubbled to her lips and it was with difficulty that she checked them. There was mockery in everything he said. She disliked him heartily, lounging there against the booth. But there was something stimulating about him, something warm and vital and electric. All that was Irish in her rose to the challenge of his black eyes. She decided she was going to take this man down a notch or two. His knowledge of her secret gave him an advantage over her that was exasperating, so she would have to change that by putting him at a disadvantage somehow. She stifled her impulse to tell him exactly what she thought of him. Sugar always caught more flies than vinegar, as Mammy often said, and she was going to catch and subdue this fly, so he could never again have her at his mercy.

“Thank you,” she said sweetly, deliberately misunderstanding his jibe. “A compliment like that coming from so famous a man as Captain Butler is appreciated.”

He threw back his head and laughed freely—yelped, was what Scarlett thought fiercely, her face becoming pink again.

“Why don’t you say what you really think?” he demanded, lowering his voice so that in the clatter and excitement of the collection, it came only to her ears. “Why don’t you say I’m a damned rascal and no gentleman and that I must take myself off or you’ll have one of these gallant boys in gray call me out?”

It was on the tip of her tongue to answer tartly, but she managed by heroic control to say: “Why, Captain Butler! How you do run on! As if everybody didn’t know how famous you are and how brave and what a—what a—

“I am disappointed in you,” he said.

“Disappointed?”

“Yes. On the occasion of our first eventful meeting I thought to myself that I had at last met a girl who was not only beautiful but who had courage. And now I see that you are only beautiful.”

“Do you mean to call me a coward?” She was ruffling like a hen.

“Exactly. You lack the courage to say what you really think. When I first met you, I thought: There is a girl in a million. She isn’t like these other silly little fools who believe everything their mammas tell them and act on it, no matter how they feel. And conceal all their feelings and desires and little heartbreaks behind a lot of sweet words. I thought: Miss O’Hara is a girl of rare spirit. She knows what she wants and she doesn’t mind speaking her mind—or throwing vases.”

“Oh,” she said, rage breaking through. “Then I’ll speak my mind right this minute. If you’d had any raising at all you’d never have come over here and talked to me. You’d have known I never wanted to lay eyes on you again! But you aren’t a gentleman! You are just a nasty ill-bred creature! And you think that because your rotten little boats can outrun the Yankees, you’ve the right to come here and jeer at men who are brave and women who are sacrificing everything for the Cause—”

“Stop, stop—” he begged with a grin. “You started off very nicely and said what you thought, but don’t begin talking to me about the Cause. I’m tired of hearing about it and I’ll bet you are, too—”

“Why, how did—” she began, caught off her balance, and then checked herself hastily, boiling with anger at herself for falling into his trap.

“I stood there in the doorway before you saw me and I watched you,” he said. “And I watched the other girls. And they all looked as though their faces came out of one mold. Yours didn’t. You have an easy face to read. You didn’t have your mind on your business and I’ll wager you weren’t thinking about our Cause or the hospital. It was all over your face that you wanted to dance and have a good time and you couldn’t. So you were mad clean through. Tell the truth. Am I not right?”

“I have nothing more to say to you, Captain Butler,” she said as formally as she could, trying to draw the rags of her dignity about her. “Just because you’re conceited at being the ‘great blockader’ doesn’t give you the right to insult women.”

“The great blockader! That’s a joke. Pray give me only one moment more of your precious time before you cast me into darkness. I wouldn’t want so charming a little patriot to be left under a misapprehension about my contribution to the Confederate Cause.”

“I don’t care to listen to your brags.”

“Blockading is a business with me and I’m making money out of it. When I stop making money out of it, I’ll quit. What do you think of that?”

“I think you’re a mercenary rascal—just like the Yankees.”

“Exactly,” he grinned. “And the Yankees help me make my money. Why, last month I sailed my boat right into New York harbor and took on a cargo.”

“What!” cried Scarlett, interested and excited in spite of herself. “Didn’t they shell you?”

“My poor innocent! Of course not. There are plenty of sturdy Union patriots who are not averse to picking up money selling goods to the Confederacy. I run my boat into New York, buy from Yankee firms, sub rosa, of course, and away I go. And when that gets a bit dangerous, I go to Nassau where these same Union patriots have brought powder and shells and hoop skirts for me. It’s more convenient than going to England. Sometimes it’s a bit difficult running it into Charleston or Wilmington—but you’d be surprised how far a little gold goes.”

“Oh, I knew Yankees were vile but I didn’t know—”

“Why quibble about the Yankees earning an honest penny selling out the Union? It won’t matter in a hundred years. The result will be the same. They know the Confederacy will be licked eventually, so why shouldn’t they cash in on it?”

“Licked—us?”

“Of course.”

“Will you please leave me—or will it be necessary for me to call my carriage and go home to get rid of you?”

“A red-hot little Rebel,” he said, with another sudden grin. He bowed and sauntered off, leaving her with her bosom heaving with impotent rage and indignation. There was disappointment burning in her that she could not quite analyze, the disappointment of a child seeing illusions crumble. How dared he take the glamor from the blockaders! And how dared he say the Confederacy would be licked! He should be shot for that—shot like a traitor. She looked about the hall at the familiar faces, so assured of success, so brave, so devoted, and somehow a cold little chill set in at her heart. Licked? These people—why, of course not! The very idea was impossible, disloyal.

“What were you two whispering about?” asked Melanie, turning to Scarlett as her customers drifted off. “I couldn’t help seeing that Mrs. Merriwether had her eye on you all the time and, dear, you know how she talks.”

“Oh, the man’s impossible—an ill-bred boor,” said Scarlett. “And as for old lady Merriwether, let her talk. I’m sick of acting like a ninny, just for her benefit.”

“Why, Scarlett!” cried Melanie, scandalized.

“Sh-sh,” said Scarlett. “Dr. Meade is going to make another announcement.”

The gathering quieted again as the doctor raised his voice, at first in thanks to the ladies who had so willingly given their jewelry.

“And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am going to propose a surprise—an innovation that may shock some of you, but I ask you to remember that all this is done for the hospital and for the benefit of our boys lying there.”

Everyone edged forward, in anticipation, trying to imagine what the sedate doctor could propose that would be shocking.

“The dancing is about to begin and the first number will, of course, be a reel, followed by a waltz. The dances following, the polkas, the schottisches, the mazurkas, will be preceded by short reels. I know the gentle rivalry to lead the reels very well and so—” The doctor mopped his brow and cast a quizzical glance at the corner, where his wife sat among the chaperons. “Gentlemen, if you wish to lead a reel with the lady of your choice, you must bargain for her. I will be auctioneer and the proceeds will go to the hospital.”

Fans stopped in mid-swish and a ripple of excited murmuring ran through the hall. The chaperons’ corner was in tumult and Mrs. Meade, anxious to support her husband in an action of which she heartily disapproved, was at a disadvantage. Mrs. Elsing, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Whiting were red with indignation. But suddenly the Home Guard gave a cheer and it was taken up by the other uniformed guests. The young girls clapped their hands and jumped excitedly.

“Don’t you think it’s—it’s just—just a little like a slave auction?” whispered Melanie, staring uncertainly at the embattled doctor who heretofore had been perfect in her eyes.

Scarlett said nothing but her eyes glittered and her heart contracted with a little pain. If only she were not a widow. If only she were Scarlett O’Hara again, out there on the floor in an apple-green dress with dark-green velvet ribbons dangling from her bosom and tuberoses in her black hair—she’d lead that reel. Yes, indeed! There’d be a dozen men battling for her and paying over money to the doctor. Oh, to have to sit here, a wallflower against her will and see Fanny or Maybelle lead the first reel as the belle of Atlanta!

Above the tumult sounded the voice of the little Zouave, his Creole accent very obvious: “Eef I may—twenty dollars for Mees Maybelle Merriwether.”

Maybelle collapsed with blushes against Fanny’s shoulder and the two girls hid their faces in each other’s necks and giggled, as other voices began calling other names, other amounts of money. Dr. Meade had begun to smile again, ignoring completely the indignant whispers that came from the Ladies’ Hospital Committee in the corner.

At first, Mrs. Merriwether had stated flatly and loudly that her Maybelle would never take part in such a proceeding; but as Maybelle’s name was called most often and the amount went up to seventy-five dollars, her protests began to dwindle. Scarlett leaned her elbows on the counter and almost glared at the excited laughing crowd surging about the platform, their hands full of Confederate paper money.

Now, they would all dance—except her and the old ladies. Now everyone would have a good time, except her. She saw Rhett Butler standing just below the doctor and, before she could change the expression of her face, he saw her and one corner of his mouth went down and one eyebrow went up. She jerked her chin up and turned away from him and suddenly she heard her own name called—called in an unmistakable Charleston voice that rang out above the hubbub of other names.

“Mrs. Charles Hamilton—one hundred and fifty dollars—in gold.”

A sudden hush fell on the crowd both at the mention of the sum and at the name. Scarlett was so startled she could not even move. She remained sitting with her chin in her hands, her eyes wide with astonishment. Everybody turned to look at her. She saw the doctor lean down from the platform and whisper something to Rhett Butler. Probably telling him she was in mourning and it was impossible for her to appear on the floor. She saw Rhett’s shoulders shrug lazily.

“Another one of our belles, perhaps?” questioned the doctor.

“No,” said Rhett clearly, his eyes sweeping the crowd carelessly. “Mrs. Hamilton.”

“I tell you it is impossible,” said the doctor testily. “Mrs. Hamilton will not—”

Scarlett heard a voice which, at first, she did not recognize as her own.

“Yes, I will!”

She leaped to her feet, her heart hammering so wildly she feared she could not stand, hammering with the thrill of being the center of attention again, of being the most highly desired girl present and oh, best of all, at the prospect of dancing again.

“Oh, I don’t care! I don’t care what they say!” she whispered, as a sweet madness swept over her. She tossed her head and sped out of the booth, tapping her heels like castanets, snapping open her black silk fan to its widest.

For a fleeting instant she saw Melanie’s incredulous face, the look on the chaperons’ faces, the petulant girls, the enthusiastic approval of the soldiers.

Then she was on the floor and Rhett Butler was advancing toward her through the aisle of the crowd, that nasty mocking smile on his face. But she didn’t care—didn’t care if he were Abe Lincoln himself! She was going to dance again. She was going to lead the reel. She swept him a low curtsy and a dazzling smile and he bowed, one hand on his frilled bosom. Levi, horrified, was quick to cover the situation and bawled: “Choose yo’ padners fo’ de Ferginny reel!”

And the orchestra crashed into that best of all reel tunes, “Dixie.”

“How dare you make me so conspicuous, Captain Butler?”

“But, my dear Mrs. Hamilton, you so obviously wanted to be conspicuous!”

“How could you call my name out in front of everybody?”

“You could have refused.”

“But—I owe it to the Cause—I— I couldn’t think of myself when you were offering so much in gold. Stop laughing, everyone is looking at us.”

“They will look at us anyway. Don’t try to palm off that twaddle about the Cause to me. You wanted to dance and I gave you the opportunity. This march is the last figure of the reel, isn’t it?”

“Yes—really, I must stop and sit down now.”

“Why? Have I stepped on your feet?”

“No—but they’ll talk about me.”

“Do you really care—down in your heart?”

“Well—”

“You aren’t committing any crime, are you? Why not dance the waltz with me?”

“But if Mother ever—”

“Still tied to mamma’s apronstrings.”

“Oh, you have the nastiest way of making virtues sound so stupid.”

“But virtues are stupid. Do you care if people talk?”

“No—but—well, let’s don’t talk about it. Thank goodness the waltz is beginning. Reels always leave me breathless.”

“Don’t dodge my questions. Has what other women said ever mattered to you?”

“Oh, if you’re going to pin me down—no! But a girl is supposed to mind. Tonight, though, I don’t care.”

“Bravo! Now you are beginning to think for yourself instead of letting others think for you. That’s the beginning of wisdom.”

“Oh, but—”

“When you’ve been talked about as much as I have, you’ll realize how little it matters. Just think, there’s not a home in Charleston where I am received. Not even my contribution to our just and holy Cause lifts the ban.”

“How dreadful!”

“Oh, not at all. Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.”

“You do talk scandalous!”

“Scandalously and truly. Always providing you have enough courage—or money—you can do without a reputation.”

“Money can’t buy everything.”

“Someone must have told you that. You’d never think of such a platitude all by yourself. What can’t it buy?”

“Oh, well, I don’t know—not happiness or love, anyway.”

“Generally it can. And when it can’t, it can buy some of the most remarkable substitutes.”

“And have you so much money, Captain Butler?”

“What an ill-bred question, Mrs. Hamilton. I’m surprised. But, yes. For a young man cut off without a shilling in early youth, I’ve done very well. And I’m sure I’ll clean up a million on the blockade.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes! What most people don’t seem to realize is that there is just as much money to be made out of the wreckage of a civilization as from the upbuilding of one.”

“And what does all that mean?”

“Your family and my family and everyone here tonight made their money out of changing a wilderness into a civilization. That’s empire building. There’s good money in empire building. But, there’s more in empire wrecking.”

“What empire are you talking about?”

“This empire we’re living in-the South—the Confederacy—the Cotton Kingdom—it’s breaking up right under our feet. Only most fools won’t see it and take advantage of the situation created by the collapse. I’m making my fortune out of the wreckage.”

“Then you really think we’re going to get licked?”

“Yes. Why be an ostrich?”

“Oh, dear, it bores me to talk about such like. Don’t you ever say pretty things, Captain Butler?”

“Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin goldfish bowls filled to the brim with the clearest green water and that when the fish swim to the top, as they are doing now, you are devilishly charming?”

“Oh, I don’t like that. . . . Isn’t the music gorgeous? Oh, I could waltz forever! I didn’t know I had missed it so!”

“You are the most beautiful dancer I’ve ever held in my arms.”

“Captain Butler, you must not hold me so tightly. Everybody is looking.”

“If no one were looking, would you care?”

“Captain Butler, you forget yourself.”

“Not for a minute. How could I, with you in my arms? . . . What is that tune? Isn’t it new?”

“Yes. Isn’t it divine? It’s something we captured from the Yankees.”

“What’s the name of it?”

“‘When This Cruel War Is Over.’”

“What are the words? Sing them to me.”

“Dearest one, do you remember

When we last did meet?

When you told me how you loved me,

Kneeling at my feet?

Oh, how proud you stood before me

In your suit of gray,

When you vowed from me and country

Ne’er to go astray.

Weeping sad and lonely,

Sighs and tears how vain!

When this cruel war is over

Pray that we meet again!”

“Of course, it was ‘suit of blue’ but we changed it to ‘gray.’ . . . Oh, you waltz so well, Captain Butler. Most big men don’t, you know. And to think it will be years and years before I’ll dance again.”

“It will only be a few minutes. I’m going to bid you in for the next reel—and the next and the next.”

“Oh, no, I couldn’t! You mustn’t! My reputation will be ruined.”

“It’s in shreds already, so what does another dance matter? Maybe I’ll give the other boys a chance after I’ve had five or six, but I must have the last one.”

“Oh, all right. I know I’m crazy but I don’t care. I don’t care a bit what anybody says. I’m so tired of sitting at home. I’m going to dance and dance—”

“And not wear black? I loathe funeral crepe.”

“Oh, I couldn’t take off mourning—Captain Butler, you must not hold me so tightly. I’ll be mad at you if you do.”

“And you look gorgeous when you are mad. I’ll squeeze you again—there—just to see if you will really get mad. You have no idea how charming you were that day at Twelve Oaks when you were mad and throwing things.”

“Oh, please—won’t you forget that?”

“No, it is one of my most priceless memories—a delicately nurtured Southern belle with her Irish up—You are very Irish, you know.”

“Oh, dear, there’s the end of the music and there’s Aunt Pittypat coming out of the back room. I know Mrs. Merriwether must have told her. Oh, for goodness’ sakes, let’s walk over and look out the window. I don’t want her to catch me now. Her eyes are as big as saucers.”

}

Chapter 10

O

ver the waffles next morning, Pittypat was lachrymose, Melanie was silent and Scarlett defiant.

“I don’t care if they do talk. I’ll bet I made more money for the hospital than any girl there—more than all the messy old stuff we sold, too.”

“Oh, dear, what does the money matter?” wailed Pittypat, wringing her hands. “I just couldn’t believe my eyes, and poor Charlie hardly dead a year. . . . And that awful Captain Butler, making you so conspicuous, and he’s a terrible, terrible person, Scarlett. Mrs. Whiting’s cousin, Mrs. Coleman, whose husband came from Charleston, told me about him. He’s the black sheep of a lovely family—oh, how could any of the Butlers ever turn out anything like him? He isn’t received in Charleston and he has the fastest reputation and there was something about a girl—something so bad Mrs. Coleman didn’t even know what it was—”

“Oh, I can’t believe he’s that bad,” said Melly gently. “He seemed a perfect gentleman and when you think how brave he’s been, running the blockade—”

“He isn’t brave,” said Scarlett perversely, pouring half a pitcher of syrup over her waffles. “He just does it for money. He told me so. He doesn’t care anything about the Confederacy and he says we’re going to get licked. But he dances divinely.”

Her audience was speechless with horror.

“I’m tired of sitting at home and I’m not going to do it any longer. If they all talked about me about last night, then my reputation is already gone and it won’t matter what else they say.”

It did not occur to her that the idea was Rhett Butler’s. It came so patly and fitted so well with what she was thinking.

“Oh! What will your mother say when she hears? What will she think of me?”

A cold qualm of guilt assailed Scarlett at the thought of Ellen’s consternation, should she ever learn of her daughter’s scandalous conduct. But she took heart at the thought of the twenty-five miles between Atlanta and Tara. Miss Pitty certainly wouldn’t tell Ellen. It would put her in such a bad light as a chaperon. And if Pitty didn’t tattle, she was safe.

“I think—” said Pitty, “yes, I think I’d better write Henry a letter about it—much as I hate it—but he’s our only male relative, and make him go speak reprovingly to Captain Butler—Oh, dear, if Charlie were only alive—You must never, never speak to that man again, Scarlett.”

Melanie had been sitting quietly, her hands in her lap, her waffles cooling on her plate. She arose and, coming behind Scarlett, put her arms about her neck.

“Darling,” she said, “don’t you get upset. I understand and it was a brave thing you did last night and it’s going to help the hospital a lot. And if anybody dares say one little word about you, I’ll tend to them. . . . Aunt Pitty, don’t cry. It has been hard on Scarlett, not going anywhere. She’s just a baby.” Her fingers played in Scarlett’s black hair. “And maybe we’d all be better off if we went out occasionally to parties. Maybe we’ve been very selfish, staying here with our grief. War times aren’t like other times. When I think of all the soldiers in town who are far from home and haven’t any friends to call on at night—and the ones in the hospital who are well enough to be out of bed and not well enough to go back in the army—Why, we have been selfish. We ought to have three convalescents in our house this minute, like everybody else, and some of the soldiers out to dinner every Sunday. There, Scarlett, don’t you fret. People won’t talk when they understand. We know you loved Charlie.”

Scarlett was far from fretting and Melanie’s soft hands in her hair were irritating. She wanted to jerk her head away and say “Oh, fiddle-dee-dee!” for the warming memory was still on her of how the Home Guard and the militia and the soldiers from the hospital had fought for her dances last night. Of all the people in the world, she didn’t want Melly for a defender. She could defend herself, thank you, and if the old cats wanted to squall—well, she could get along without the old cats. There were too many nice officers in the world for her to bother about what old women said.

Pittypat was dabbing at her eyes under Melanie’s soothing words when Prissy entered with a bulky letter.

“Fer you. Miss Melly. A lil nigger boy brung it.”

“For me?” said Melly, wondering, as she ripped open the envelope.

Scarlett was making headway with her waffles and so noticed nothing until she heard a burst of tears from Melly and, looking up, saw Aunt Pittypat’s hand go to her heart.

“Ashley’s dead!” screamed Pittypat, throwing her head back and letting her arms go limp.

“Oh, my God!” cried Scarlett, her blood turning to ice water.

“No! No!” cried Melanie. “Quick! Her smelling salts, Scarlett! There, there, honey, do you feel better? Breathe deep. No, it’s not Ashley. I’m so sorry I scared you. I was crying because I’m so happy,” and suddenly she opened her clenched palm and pressed some object that was in it to her lips. “I’m so happy,” and burst into tears again.

Scarlett caught a fleeting glimpse and saw that it was a broad gold ring.

“Read it,” said Melly, pointing to the letter on the floor. “Oh, how sweet, how kind, he is!”

Scarlett, bewildered, picked up the single sheet and saw written in a black, bold hand: “The Confederacy may need the lifeblood of its men but not yet does it demand the heart’s blood of its women. Accept, dear Madam, this token of my reverence for your courage and do not think that your sacrifice has been in vain, for this ring has been redeemed at ten times its value. Captain Rhett Butler.”

Melanie slipped the ring on her finger and looked at it lovingly.

“I told you he was a gentleman, didn’t I?” she said turning to Pittypat, her smile bright through the teardrops on her face. “No one but a gentleman of refinement and thoughtfulness would ever have thought how it broke my heart to—I’ll send my gold chain instead. Aunt Pittypat, you must write him a note and invite him to Sunday dinner so I can thank him.”

In the excitement, neither of the others seemed to have thought that Captain Butler had not returned Scarlett’s ring, too. But she thought of it, annoyed. And she knew it had not been Captain Butler’s refinement that had prompted so gallant a gesture. It was that he intended to be asked into Pittypat’s house and knew unerringly how to get the invitation.

“I was greatly disturbed to hear of your recent conduct,” ran Ellen’s letter and Scarlett, who was reading it at the table, scowled. Bad news certainly traveled swiftly. She had often heard in Charleston and Savannah that Atlanta people gossiped more and meddled in other people’s business more than any other people in the South, and now she believed it. The bazaar had taken place Monday night and today was only Thursday. Which of the old cats had taken it upon herself to write Ellen? For a moment she suspected Pittypat but immediately abandoned that thought. Poor Pittypat had been quaking in her number-three shoes for fear of being blamed for Scarlett’s forward conduct and would be the last to notify Ellen of her own inadequate chaperonage. Probably it was Mrs. Merriwether.

“It is difficult for me to believe that you could so forget yourself and your rearing. I will pass over the impropriety of your appearing publicly while in mourning, realizing your warm desire to be of assistance to the hospital. But to dance, and with such a man as Captain Butler! I have heard much of him (as who has not?) and Pauline wrote me only last week that he is a man of bad repute and not even received by his own family in Charleston, except of course by his heartbroken mother. He is a thoroughly bad character who would take advantage of your youth and innocence to make you conspicuous and publicly disgrace you and your family. How could Miss Pittypat have so neglected her duty to you?”

Scarlett looked across the table at her aunt. The old lady had recognized Ellen’s handwriting and her fat little mouth was pursed in a frightened way, like a baby who fears a scolding and hopes to ward it off by tears.

“I am heartbroken to think that you could so soon forget your rearing. I have thought of calling you home immediately but will leave that to your father’s discretion. He will be in Atlanta Friday to speak with Captain Butler and to escort you home. I fear he will be severe with you despite my pleadings. I hope and pray it was only youth and thoughtlessness that prompted such forward conduct. No one can wish to serve our Cause more than I, and I wish my daughters to feel the same way, but to disgrace—”

There was more in the same vein but Scarlett did not finish it. For once, she was thoroughly frightened. She did not feel reckless and defiant now. She felt as young and guilty as when she was ten and had thrown a buttered biscuit at Suellen at the table. To think of her gentle mother reproving her so harshly and her father coming to town to talk to Captain Butler. The real seriousness of the matter grew on her. Gerald was going to be severe. This was one time when she knew she couldn’t wiggle out of her punishment by sitting on his knee and being sweet and pert.

“Not—not bad news?” quavered Pittypat.

“Pa is coming tomorrow and he’s going to land on me like a duck on a June bug,” answered Scarlett dolorously.

“Prissy, find my salts,” fluttered Pittypat, pushing back her chair from her half-eaten meal. “I— I feel faint.”

“Dey’s in yo’ skirt pocket,” said Prissy, who had been hovering behind Scarlett, enjoying the sensational drama. Mist’ Gerald in a temper was always exciting, providing his temper was not directed at her kinky head. Pitty fumbled at her skirt and held the vial to her nose.

“You all must stand by me and not leave me alone with him for one minute,” cried Scarlett. “He’s so fond of you both, and if you are with me he can’t fuss at me.”

“I couldn’t,” said Pittypat weakly, rising to her feet. “I— I feel ill. I must go lie down. I shall lie down all day tomorrow. You must give him my excuses.”

“Coward!” thought Scarlett, glowering at her.

Melly rallied to the defense, though white and frightened at the prospect of facing the fire-eating Mr. O’Hara. “I’ll—I’ll help you explain how you did it for the hospital. Surely he’ll understand.”

“No, he won’t,” said Scarlett. “And oh, I shall die if I have to go back to Tara in disgrace, like Mother threatens!”

“Oh, you can’t go home,” cried Pittypat, bursting into tears. “If you did I should be forced—yes, forced to ask Henry to come live with us, and you know I just couldn’t live with Henry. I’m so nervous with just Melly in the house at night, with so many strange men in town. You’re so brave I don’t mind being here without a man!”

“Oh, he couldn’t take you to Tara!” said Melly, looking as if she too would cry in a moment. “This is your home now. What would we ever do without you?”

“You’d be glad to do without me if you knew what I really think of you,” thought Scarlett sourly, wishing there were some other person than Melanie to help ward off Gerald’s wrath. It was sickening to be defended by someone you disliked so much.

“Perhaps we should recall our invitation to Captain Butler—” began Pittypat.

“Oh, we couldn’t! It would be the height of rudeness!” cried Melly, distressed.

“Help me to bed. I’m going to be ill,” moaned Pittypat. “Oh, Scarlett, how could you have brought this on me?”

Pittypat was ill and in her bed when Gerald arrived the next afternoon. She sent many messages of regret to him from behind her closed door and left the two frightened girls to preside over the supper table. Gerald was ominously silent although he kissed Scarlett and pinched Melanie’s cheek approvingly and called her “Cousin Melly.” Scarlett would have infinitely preferred bellowing oaths and accusations. True to her promise, Melanie clung to Scarlett’s skirts like a small rustling shadow and Gerald was too much of a gentleman to upbraid his daughter in front of her. Scarlett had to admit that Melanie carried off things very well, acting as if she knew nothing was amiss, and she actually succeeded in engaging Gerald in conversation, once the supper had been served.

“I want to know all about the County,” she said, beaming upon him. “India and Honey are such poor correspondents, and I know you know everything that goes on down there. Do tell us about Joe Fontaine’s wedding.”

Gerald warmed to the flattery and said that the wedding had been a quiet affair, “not like you girls had,” for Joe had only a few days’ furlough. Sally, the little Munroe chit, looked very pretty. No, he couldn’t recall what she wore but he did hear that she didn’t have a “second-day” dress.

“She didn’t!” exclaimed the girls, scandalized.

“Sure, because she didn’t have a second day,” Gerald explained and bawled with laughter before recalling that perhaps such remarks were not fit for female ears. Scarlett’s spirits soared at his laugh and she blessed Melanie’s tact.

“Back Joe went to Virginia the next day,” Gerald added hastily. “There was no visiting about and dancing afterwards. The Tarleton twins are home.”

“We heard that. Have they recovered?”

“They weren’t badly wounded. Stuart had it in the knee and a minie ball went through Brent’s shoulder. You had it, too, that they were mentioned in dispatches for bravery?”

“No! Tell us!”

“Hare brained—both of them. I’m believing there’s Irish in them,” said Gerald complacently. “I forget what they did, but Brent is a lieutenant now.”

Scarlett felt pleased at hearing of their exploits, pleased in a proprietary manner. Once a man had been her beau, she never lost the conviction that he belonged to her, and all his good deeds redounded to her credit.

“And I’ve news that’ll be holding the both of you,” said Gerald. “They’re saying Stu is courting at Twelve Oaks again.”

“Honey or India?” questioned Melly excitedly, while Scarlett stared almost indignantly.

“Oh, Miss India, to be sure. Didn’t she have him fast till this baggage of mine winked at him?”

“Oh,” said Melly, somewhat embarrassed at Gerald’s outspokenness.

“And more than that, young Brent has taken to hanging about Tara. Now!”

Scarlett could not speak. The defection of her beaux was almost insulting. Especially when she recalled how wildly both the twins had acted when she told them she was going to marry Charles. Stuart had even threatened to shoot Charles, or Scarlett, or himself, or all three. It had been most exciting.

“Suellen?” questioned Melly, breaking into a pleased smile. “But I thought Mr. Kennedy—”

“Oh, him?” said Gerald. “Frank Kennedy still pussyfoots about, afraid of his shadow, and I’ll be asking him his intentions soon if he doesn’t speak up. No, ’tis me baby.”

“Carreen?”

“She’s nothing but a child!” said Scarlett sharply, finding her tongue.

“She’s little more than a year younger than you were, Miss, when you were married,” retorted Gerald. “Is it you’re grudging your old beau to your sister?”

Melly blushed, unaccustomed to such frankness, and signaled Peter to bring in the sweet potato pie. Frantically she cast about in her mind for some other topic of conversation which would not be so personal but which would divert Mr. O’Hara from the purpose of his trip. She could think of nothing but, once started, Gerald needed no stimulus other than an audience. He talked on about the thievery of the commissary department which every month increased its demands, the knavish stupidity of Jefferson Davis and the blackguardery of the Irish who were being enticed into the Yankee army by bounty money.

When the wine was on the table and the two girls rose to leave him, Gerald cocked a severe eye at his daughter from under frowning brows and commanded her presence alone for a few minutes. Scarlett cast a despairing glance at Melly, who twisted her handkerchief helplessly and went out, softly pulling the sliding doors together.

“How now, Missy!” bawled Gerald, pouring himself a glass of port. “’Tis a fine way to act! Is it another husband you’re trying to catch and you so fresh a widow?”

“Not so loud, Pa, the servants—”

“They know already, to be sure, and everybody knows of our disgrace. And your poor mother taking to her bed with it and me not able to hold up me head. ’Tis shameful. No, Puss, you need not think to get around me with tears this time,” he said hastily and with some panic in his voice as Scarlett’s lids began to bat and her mouth to screw up. “I know you. You’d be flirting at the wake of your husband. Don’t cry. There, I’ll be saying no more tonight, for I’m going to see this fine Captain Butler who makes so light of me daughter’s reputation. But in the morning—There now, don’t cry. Twill do you no good at all, at all. ’Tis firm that I am and back to Tara you’ll be going tomorrow before you’re disgracing the lot of us again. Don’t cry, pet. Look what I’ve brought you! Isn’t that a pretty present? See, look! How could you be putting so much trouble on me, bringing me all the way up here when ’tis a busy man I am? Don’t cry!”

Melanie and Pittypat had gone to sleep hours before, but Scarlett lay awake in the warm darkness, her heart heavy and frightened in her breast. To leave Atlanta when life had just begun again and go home and face Ellen! She would rather die than face her mother. She wished she were dead, this very minute, then everyone would be sorry they had been so hateful. She turned and tossed on the hot pillow until a noise far up the quiet street reached her ears. It was an oddly familiar noise, blurred and indistinct though it was. She slipped out of bed and went to the window. The street with its over-arching trees was softly, deeply black under a dim star-studded sky. The noise came closer, the sound of wheels, the plod of a horse’s hooves and voices. And suddenly she grinned for, as a voice thick with brogue and whisky came to her, raised in “Peg in a Low-backed Car,” she knew. This might not be Jonesboro on Court Day, but Gerald was coming home in the same condition.

She saw the dark bulk of a buggy stop in front of the house and indistinct figures alight. Someone was with him. Two figures paused at the gate and she heard the click of the latch and Gerald’s voice came plain,

“Now I’ll be giving you the ‘Lament for Robert Emmet.’ ’Tis a song you should be knowing, me lad. I’ll teach it to you.”

“I’d like to learn it,” replied his companion, a hint of buried laughter in his flat drawling voice. “But not now, Mr. O’Hara.”

“Oh, my God, it’s that hateful Butler man!” thought Scarlett, at first annoyed. Then she took heart. At least they hadn’t shot each other. And they must be on amicable terms to be coming home together at this hour and in this condition.

“Sing it I will and listen you will or I’ll be shooting you for the Orangeman you are.”

“Not Orangeman—Charlestonian.”

“’Tis no better. ’Tis worse. I have two sister-inlaws in Charleston and I know.”

“Is he going to tell the whole neighborhood?” thought Scarlett panic-stricken, reaching for her wrapper. But what could she do? She couldn’t go downstairs at this hour of the night and drag her father in from the street.

With no further warning, Gerald, who was hanging on the gate, threw back his head and began the “Lament,” in a roaring bass. Scarlett rested her elbows on the window sill and listened, grinning unwillingly. It would be a beautiful song, if only her father could carry a tune. It was one of her favorite songs and, for a moment, she followed the fine melancholy of those verses beginning:

“She is far from the land where her young hero sleeps And lovers are round her sighing.”

The song went on and she heard stirrings in Pittypat’s and Melly’s rooms. Poor things, they’d certainly be upset. They were not used to full-blooded males like Gerald. When the song had finished, two forms merged into one, came up the walk and mounted the steps. A discreet knock sounded at the door.

“I suppose I must go down,” thought Scarlett. “After all he’s my father and poor Pitty would die before she’d go.” Besides, she didn’t want the servants to see Gerald in his present condition. And if Peter tried to put him to bed, he might get unruly. Pork was the only one who knew how to handle him.

She pinned the wrapper close about her throat, lit her bedside candle and hurried down the dark stairs into the front hall. Setting the candle on the stand, she unlocked the door and in the wavering light she saw Rhett Butler, not a ruffle disarranged, supporting her small, thickset father. The “Lament” had evidently been Gerald’s swan song for he was frankly hanging onto his companion’s arm. His hat was gone, his crisp long hair was tumbled in a white mane, his cravat was under one ear, and there were liquor stains down his shirt bosom.

“Your father, I believe?” said Captain Butler, his eyes amused in his swarthy face. He took in her dishabille in one glance that seemed to penetrate through her wrapper.

“Bring him in,” she said shortly, embarrassed at her attire, infuriated at Gerald for putting her in a position where this man could laugh at her.

Rhett propelled Gerald forward. “Shall I help you take him upstairs? You cannot manage him. He’s quite heavy.”

Her mouth fell open with horror at the audacity of his proposal. Just imagine what Pittypat and Melly cowering in their beds would think, should Captain Butler come upstairs!

“Mother of God, no! In here, in the parlor on that settee.”

“The suttee, did you say?”

“I’ll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your head. Here. Now lay him down.”

“Shall I take off his boots?”

“No. He’s slept in them before.”

She could have bitten off her tongue for that slip, for he laughed softly as he crossed Gerald’s legs.

“Please go, now.”

He walked out into the dim hall and picked up the hat he had dropped on the doorsill.

“I will be seeing you Sunday at dinner,” he said and went out, closing the door noiselessly behind him.

Scarlett arose at five-thirty, before the servants had come in from the back yard to start breakfast, and slipped down the steps to the quiet lower floor. Gerald was awake, sitting on the sofa, his hands gripping his bullet head as if he wished to crush it between his palms. He looked up furtively as she entered. The pain of moving his eyes was too excruciating to be borne and he groaned.

“Wurra the day!”

“It’s a fine way you’ve acted, Pa,” she began in a furious whisper. “Coming home at such an hour and waking all the neighbors with your singing.”

“I sang?”

“Sang! You woke the echoes singing the ‘Lament.’”

“’Tis nothing I’m remembering.”

“The neighbors will remember it till their dying day and so will Miss Pittypat and Melanie.”

“Mother of Sorrows,” moaned Gerald, moving a thickly furred tongue around parched lips. “’Tis little I’m remembering after the game started.”

“Game?”

“That laddybuck Butler bragged that he was the best poker player in-”

“How much did you lose?”

“Why, I won, naturally. A drink or two helps me game.”

“Look in your wallet.”

As if every movement was agony, Gerald removed his wallet from his coat and opened it. It was empty and he looked at it in forlorn bewilderment.

“Five hundred dollars,” he said. “And ’twas to buy things from the blockaders for Mrs. O’Hara, and now not even fare left to Tara.”

As she looked indignantly at the empty purse, an idea took form in Scarlett’s mind and grew swiftly.

“I’ll not be holding up my head in this town,” she began. “You’ve disgraced us all.”

“Hold your tongue, Puss. Can you not see me head is bursting?”

“Coming home drunk with a man like Captain Butler, and singing at the top of your lungs for everyone to hear and losing all that money.”

“The man is too clever with cards to be a gentleman. He—”

“What will Mother say when she hears?”

He looked up in sudden anguished apprehension. “You wouldn’t be telling your mother a word and upsetting her, now would you?”

Scarlett said nothing but pursed her lips.

“Think now how ‘twould hurt her and her so gentle.”

“And to think, Pa, that you said only last night I had disgraced the family! Me, with my poor little dance to make money for the soldiers. Oh, I could cry.”

“Well, don’t,” pleaded Gerald. “‘Twould be more than me poor head could stand and sure ’tis bursting now.”

“And you said that I—”

“Now Puss, now Puss, don’t you be hurt at what your poor old father said and him not meaning a thing and not understanding a thing! Sure, you’re a fine well-meaning girl, I’m sure.”

“And wanting to take me home in disgrace.”

“Ah, darling, I wouldn’t be doing that. ’Twas to tease you. You won’t be mentioning the money to your mother and her in a flutter about expenses already?”

“No,” said Scarlett frankly, “I won’t, if you’ll let me stay here and if you’ll tell Mother that ’twas nothing but a lot of gossip from old cats.”

Gerald looked mournfully at his daughter.

“’Tis blackmail, no less.”

“And last night was a scandal, no less.”

“Well,” he began wheedlingly, “we’ll be forgetting all that. And do you think a fine pretty lady like Miss Pittypat would be having any brandy in the house? The hair of the dog—”

Scarlett turned and tiptoed through the silent hall into the dining room to get the brandy bottle that she and Melly privately called the “swoon bottle” because Pittypat always took a sip from it when her fluttering heart made her faint—or seem to faint. Triumph was written on her face and no trace of shame for her unfilial treatment of Gerald. Now Ellen would be soothed with lies if any other busybody wrote her. Now she could stay in Atlanta. Now she could do almost as she pleased, Pittypat being the weak vessel that she was. She unlocked the cellaret and stood for a moment with the bottle and glass pressed to her bosom.

She saw a long vista of picnics by the bubbling waters of Peachtree Creek and barbecues at Stone Mountain, receptions and balls, afternoon danceables, buggy rides and Sunday-night buffet suppers. She would be there, right in the heart of things, right in the center of a crowd of men. And men fell in love so easily, after you did little things for them at the hospital. She wouldn’t mind the hospital so much now. Men were so easily stirred when they had been ill. They fell into a clever girl’s hand just like the ripe peaches at Tara when the trees were gently shaken.

She went back toward her father with the reviving liquor, thanking Heaven that the famous O’Hara head had not been able to survive last night’s bout and wondering suddenly if Rhett Butler had had anything to do with that.

}

Chapter 11

O

n an afternoon of the following week, Scarlett came home from the hospital weary and indignant. She was tired from standing on her feet all morning and irritable because Mrs. Merriwether had scolded her sharply for sitting on a soldier’s bed while she dressed his wounded arm. Aunt Pitty and Melanie, bonneted in their best, were on the porch with Wade and Prissy, ready for their weekly round of calls. Scarlett asked to be excused from accompanying them and went upstairs to her room.

When the last sound of carriage wheels had died away and she knew the family was safely out of sight, she slipped quietly into Melanie’s room and turned the key in the lock. It was a prim, virginal little room and it lay still and warm in the slanting rays of the four-o’clock sun. The floors were glistening and bare except for a few bright rag rugs, and the white walls unornamented save for one corner which Melanie had fitted up as a shrine.

Here, under a draped Confederate flag, hung the gold-hilted saber that Melanie’s father had carried in the Mexican War, the same saber Charles had worn away to war. Charles’ sash and pistol belt hung there too, with his revolver in the holster. Between the saber and the pistol was a daguerreotype of Charles himself, very stiff and proud in his gray uniform, his great brown eyes shining out of the frame and a shy smile on his lips.

Scarlett did not even glance at the picture but went unhesitatingly across the room to the square rosewood writing box that stood on the table beside the narrow bed. From it she took a pack of letters tied together with a blue ribbon, addressed in Ashley’s hand to Melanie. On the top was the letter which had come that morning and this one she opened.

When Scarlett first began secretly reading these letters, she had been so stricken of conscience and so fearful of discovery she could hardly open the envelopes for trembling. Now, her never-too-scrupulous sense of honor was dulled by repetition of the offense and even fear of discovery had subsided. Occasionally, she thought with a sinking heart, “What would Mother say if she knew?” She knew Ellen would rather see her dead than know her guilty of such dishonor. This had worried Scarlett at first, for she still wanted to be like her mother in every respect. But the temptation to read the letters was too great and she put the thought of Ellen out of her mind. She had become adept at putting unpleasant thoughts out of her mind these days. She had learned to say, “I won’t think of this or that bothersome thought now. I’ll think about it tomorrow.” Generally, when tomorrow came, the thought either did not occur at all or it was so attenuated by the delay it was not very troublesome. So the matter of Ashley’s letters did not lie very heavily on her conscience.

Melanie was always generous with the letters, reading parts of them aloud to Aunt Pitty and Scarlett. But it was the part she did not read that tormented Scarlett, that drove her to surreptitious reading of her sister-inlaw’s mail. She had to know if Ashley had come to love his wife since marrying her. She had to know if he even pretended to love her. Did he address tender endearments to her? What sentiments did he express and with what warmth?

She carefully smoothed out the letter.

Ashley’s small even writing leaped up at her as she read, “My dear wife,” and she breathed in relief. He wasn’t calling Melanie “Darling” or “Sweetheart” yet.

“My Dear wife: You write me saying you are alarmed lest I be concealing my real thoughts from you and you ask me what is occupying my mind these days—”

“Mother of God!” thought Scarlett, in a panic of guilt. “‘Concealing his real thoughts.’ Can Melly have read his mind? Or my mind? Does she suspect that he and I—”

Her hands trembled with fright as she held the letter closer, but as she read the next paragraph she relaxed.

“Dear Wife, if I have concealed aught from you it is because I did not wish to lay a burden on your shoulders, to add to your worries for my physical safety with those of my mental turmoil. But I can keep nothing from you, for you know me too well. Do not be alarmed. I have no wound. I have not been ill. I have enough to eat and occasionally a bed to sleep in. A soldier can ask for no more. But, Melanie, heavy thoughts lie on my heart and I will open my heart to you.

“These summer nights I lie awake, long after the camp is sleeping, and I look up at the stars and, over and over, I wonder, ‘Why are you here, Ashley Wilkes? What are you fighting for?’

“Not for honor and glory, certainly. War is a dirty business and I do not like dirt. I am not a soldier and I have no desire to seek the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth. Yet, here I am at the wars—whom God never intended to be other than a studious country gentleman. For, Melanie, bugles do not stir my blood nor drums entice my feet and I see too clearly that we have been betrayed, betrayed by our arrogant Southern selves, believing that one of us could whip a dozen Yankees, believing that King Cotton could rule the world. Betrayed, too, by words and catch phrases, prejudices and hatreds coming from the mouths of those highly placed, those men whom we respected and revered—‘King Cotton, Slavery, States’ Rights, Damn Yankees.’

“And so when I lie on my blanket and look up at the stars and say ‘What are you fighting for?’ I think of States’ Rights and cotton and the darkies and the Yankees whom we have been bred to hate, and I know that none of these is the reason why I am fighting. Instead, I see Twelve Oaks and remember how the moonlight slants across the white columns, and the unearthly way the magnolias look, opening under the moon, and how the climbing roses make the side porch shady even at the hottest noon. And I see Mother, sewing there, as she did when I was a little boy. And I hear the darkies coming home across the fields at dusk, tired and singing and ready for supper, and the sound of the windlass as the bucket goes down into the cool well. And there’s the long view down the road to the river, across the cotton fields, and the mist rising from the bottom lands in the twilight. And that is why I’m here who have no love of death or misery or glory and no hatred for anyone. Perhaps that is what is called patriotism, love of home and country. But Melanie, it goes deeper than that. For, Melanie, these things I have named are but the symbols of the thing for which I risk my life, symbols of the kind of life I love. For I am fighting for the old days, the old ways I love so much but which, I fear, are now gone forever, no matter how the die may fall. For, win or lose, we lose just the same.

“If we win this war and have the Cotton Kingdom of our dreams, we still have lost, for we will become a different people and the old quiet ways will go. The world will be at our doors clamoring for cotton and we can command our own price. Then, I fear, we will become like the Yankees, at whose money-making activities, acquisitiveness and commercialism we now sneer. And if we lose, Melanie, if we lose!

“I am not afraid of danger or capture or wounds or even death, if death must come, but I do fear that once this war is over, we will never get back to the old times. And I belong in those old times. I do not belong in this mad present of killing and I fear I will not fit into any future, try though I may. Nor will you, my dear, for you and I are of the same blood. I do not know what the future will bring, but it cannot be as beautiful or as satisfying as the past.

“I lie and look at the boys sleeping near me and I wonder if the twins or Alex or Cade think these same thoughts. I wonder if they know they are fighting for a Cause that was lost the minute the first shot was fired, for our Cause is really our own way of living and that is gone already. But I do not think they think these things and they are lucky.

“I had not thought of this for us when I asked you to marry me. I had thought of life going on at Twelve Oaks as it had always done, peacefully, easily, unchanging. We are alike, Melanie, loving the same quiet things, and I saw before us a long stretch of uneventful years in which to read, hear music and dream. But not this! Never this! That this could happen to us all, this wrecking of old ways, this bloody slaughter and hate! Melanie, nothing is worth it—States’ Rights, nor slaves, nor cotton. Nothing is worth what is happening to us now and what may happen, for if the Yankees whip us the future will be one of incredible horror. And, my dear, they may yet whip us.

“I should not write those words. I should not even think them. But you have asked me what was in my heart, and the fear of defeat is there. Do you remember at the barbecue, the day our engagement was announced, that a man named Butler, a Charlestonian by his accent, nearly caused a fight by his remarks about the ignorance of Southerners? Do you recall how the twins wanted to shoot him because he said we had few foundries and factories, mills and ships, arsenals and machine shops? Do you recall how he said the Yankee fleet could bottle us up so tightly we could not ship out our cotton? He was right. We are fighting the Yankees’ new rifles with Revolutionary War muskets, and soon the blockade will be too tight for even medical supplies to slip in. We should have paid heed to cynics like Butler who knew, instead of statesmen who felt—and talked. He said, in effect, that the South had nothing with which to wage war but cotton and arrogance. Our cotton is worthless and what he called arrogance is all that is left. But I call that arrogance matchless courage. If—”

But Scarlett carefully folded up the letter without finishing it and thrust it back into the envelope, too bored to read further. Besides, the tone of the letter vaguely depressed her with its foolish talk of defeat. After all, she wasn’t reading Melanie’s mail to learn Ashley’s puzzling and uninteresting ideas. She had had to listen to enough of them when he sat on the porch at Tara in days gone by.

All she wanted to know was whether he wrote impassioned letters to his wife. So far he had not. She had read every letter in the writing box and there was nothing in any one of them that a brother might not have written to a sister. They were affectionate, humorous, discursive, but not the letters of a lover. Scarlett had received too many ardent love letters herself not to recognize the authentic note of passion when she saw it. And that note was missing. As always after her secret readings, a feeling of smug satisfaction enveloped her, for she felt certain that Ashley still loved her. And always she wondered sneeringly why Melanie did not realize that Ashley only loved her as a friend. Melanie evidently found nothing lacking in her husband’s messages but Melanie had had no other man’s love letters with which to compare Ashley’s.”

“He writes such crazy letters,” Scarlett thought. “If ever any husband of mine wrote me such twaddle-twaddle, he’d certainly hear from me! Why, even Charlie wrote better letters than these.”

She flipped back the edges of the letters, looking at the dates, remembering their contents. In them there were no fine descriptive pages of bivouacs and charges such as Darcy Meade wrote his parents or poor Dallas McLure had written his old-maid sisters, Misses Faith and Hope. The Meades and McLures proudly read these letters all over the neighborhood, and Scarlett had frequently felt a secret shame that Melanie had no such letters from Ashley to read aloud at sewing circles.

It was as though when writing Melanie, Ashley tried to ignore the war altogether, and sought to draw about the two of them a magic circle of timelessness, shutting out everything that had happened since Fort Sumter was the news of the day. It was almost as if he were trying to believe there wasn’t any war. He wrote of books which he and Melanie had read and songs they had sung, of old friends they knew and places he had visited on his Grand Tour. Through the letters ran a wistful yearning to be back home at Twelve Oaks, and for pages he wrote of the hunting and the long rides through the still forest paths under frosty autumn stars, the barbecues, the fish fries, the quiet of moonlight nights and the serene charm of the old house.

She thought of his words in the letter she had just read: “Not this! Never this!” and they seemed to cry of a tormented soul facing something he could not face, yet must face. It puzzled her for, if he was not afraid of wounds and death, what was it he feared? Unanalytical, she struggled with the complex thought.

“The war disturbs him and he—he doesn’t like things that disturb him. . . . Me, for instance. . . . He loved me but he was afraid to marry me because—for fear I’d upset his way of thinking and living. No, it wasn’t exactly that he was afraid. Ashley isn’t a coward. He couldn’t be when he’s been mentioned in dispatches and when Colonel Sloan wrote that letter to Melly all about his gallant conduct in leading the charge. Once he’s made up his mind to do something, no one could be braver or more determined but—He lives inside his head instead of outside in the world and he hates to come out into the world and—Oh, I don’t know what it is! If I’d just understood this one thing about him years ago, I know he’d have married me.”

She stood for a moment holding the letters to her breast, thinking longingly of Ashley. Her emotions toward him had not changed since the day when she first fell in love with him. They were the same emotions that struck her speechless that day when she was fourteen years old and she had stood on the porch of Tara and seen Ashley ride up smiling, his hair shining silver in the morning sun. Her love was still a young girl’s adoration for a man she could not understand, a man who possessed all the qualities she did not own but which she admired. He was still a young girl’s dream of the Perfect Knight and her dream asked no more than acknowledgment of his love, went no further than hopes of a kiss.

After reading the letters, she felt certain he did love her, Scarlett, even though he had married Melanie, and that certainty was almost all that she desired. She was still that young and untouched. Had Charles with his fumbling awkwardness and his embarrassed intimacies tapped any of the deep vein of passionate feeling within her, her dreams of Ashley would not be ending with a kiss. But those few moonlight nights alone with Charles had not touched her emotions or ripened her to maturity. Charles had awakened no idea of what passion might be or tenderness or true intimacy of body or spirit.

All that passion meant to her was servitude to inexplicable male madness, unshared by females, a painful and embarrassing process that led inevitably to the still more painful process of childbirth. That marriage should be like this was no surprise to her. Ellen had hinted before the wedding that marriage was something women must bear with dignity and fortitude, and the whispered comments of other matrons since her widowhood had confirmed this. Scarlett was glad to be done with passion and marriage.

She was done with marriage but not with love, for her love for Ashley was something different, having nothing to do with passion or marriage, something sacred and breathtakingly beautiful, an emotion that grew stealthily through the long days of her enforced silence, feeding on oft-thumbed memories and hopes.

She sighed as she carefully tied the ribbon about the packet, wondering for the thousandth time just what it was in Ashley that eluded her understanding. She tried to think the matter to some satisfactory conclusion but, as always, the conclusion evaded her uncomplex mind. She put the letters back in the lap secretary and closed the lid. Then she frowned, for her mind went back to the last part of the letter she had just read, to his mention of Captain Butler. How strange that Ashley should be impressed by something that scamp had said a year ago. Undeniably Captain Butler was a scamp, for all that he danced divinely. No one but a scamp would say the things about the Confederacy that he had said at the bazaar.

She crossed the room to the mirror and patted her smooth hair approvingly. Her spirits rose, as always at the sight of her white skin and slanting green eyes, and she smiled to bring out her dimples. Then she dismissed Captain Butler from her mind as she happily viewed her reflection, remembering how Ashley had always liked her dimples. No pang of conscience at loving another woman’s husband or reading that woman’s mail disturbed her pleasure in her youth and charm and her renewed assurance of Ashley’s love.

She unlocked the door and went down the dim winding stair with a light heart. Halfway down she began singing “When This Cruel War Is Over.”

}

Chapter 12

T

he war went on, successfully for the most part, but people had stopped saying “One more victory and the war is over,” just as they had stopped saying the Yankees were cowards. It was obvious to all now that the Yankees were far from cowardly and that it would take more than one victory to conquer them. However, there were the Confederate victories in Tennessee scored by General Morgan and General Forrest and the triumph at the Second Battle of Bull Run hung up like visible Yankee scalps to gloat over. But there was a heavy price on these scalps. The hospitals and homes of Atlanta were overflowing with the sick and wounded, and more and more women were appearing in black. The monotonous rows of soldiers’ graves at Oakland Cemetery stretched longer every day.

Confederate money had dropped alarmingly and the price of food and clothing had risen accordingly. The commissary was laying such heavy levies on foodstuffs that the tables of Atlanta were beginning to suffer. White flour was scarce and so expensive that corn bread was universal instead of biscuits, rolls and waffles. The butcher shops carried almost no beef and very little mutton, and that mutton cost so much only the rich could afford it. However there was still plenty of hog meat, as well as chickens and vegetables.

The Yankee blockade about the Confederate ports had tightened, and luxuries such as tea, coffee, silks, whalebone stays, colognes, fashion magazines and books were scarce and dear. Even the cheapest cotton goods had skyrocketed in price and ladies were regretfully making their old dresses do another season. Looms that had gathered dust for years had been brought down from attics, and there were webs of homespun to be found in nearly every parlor. Everyone, soldiers, civilians, women, children and negroes, began to wear homespun. Gray, as the color of the Confederate uniform, practically disappeared and homespun of a butternut shade took its place.

Already the hospitals were worrying about the scarcity of quinine, calomel, opium, chloroform and iodine. Linen and cotton bandages were too precious now to be thrown away when used, and every lady who nursed at the hospitals brought home baskets of bloody strips to be washed and ironed and returned for use on other sufferers.

But to Scarlett, newly emerged from the chrysalis of widowhood, all the war meant was a time of gaiety and excitement. Even the small privations of clothing and food did not annoy her, so happy was she to be in the world again.

When she thought of the dull times of the past year, with the days going by one very much like another, life seemed to have quickened to an incredible speed. Every day dawned as an exciting adventure, a day in which she would meet new men who would ask to call on her, tell her how pretty she was, and how it was a privilege to fight and, perhaps, to die for her. She could and did love Ashley with the last breath in her body, but that did not prevent her from inveigling other men into asking to marry her.

The ever-present war in the background lent a pleasant informality to social relations, an informality which older people viewed with alarm. Mothers found strange men calling on their daughters, men who came without letters of introduction and whose antecedents were unknown. To their horror, mothers found their daughters holding hands with these men. Mrs. Merriwether, who had never kissed her husband until after the wedding ceremony, could scarcely believe her eyes when she caught Maybelle kissing the little Zouave, Rene Picard, and her consternation was even greater when Maybelle refused to be ashamed. Even the fact that Rene immediately asked for her hand did not improve matters. Mrs. Merriwether felt that the South was heading for a complete moral collapse and frequently said so. Other mothers concurred heartily with her and blamed it on the war.

But men who expected to die within a week or a month could not wait a year before they begged to call a girl by her first name, with “Miss,” of course, preceding it. Nor would they go through the formal and protracted courtships which good manners had prescribed before the war. They were likely to propose in three or four months. And girls who knew very well that a lady always refused a gentleman the first three times he proposed rushed headlong to accept the first time.

This informality made the war a lot of fun for Scarlett. Except for the messy business of nursing and the bore of bandage rolling, she did not care if the war lasted forever. In fact, she could endure the hospital with equanimity now because it was a perfect happy hunting ground. The helpless wounded succumbed to her charms without a struggle. Renew their bandages, wash their faces, pat up their pillows and fan them, and they fell in love. Oh, it was Heaven after the last dreary year!

Scarlett was back again where she had been before she married Charles and it was as if she had never married him, never felt the shock of his death, never borne Wade. War and marriage and childbirth had passed over her without touching any deep chord within her and she was unchanged. She had a child but he was cared for so well by the others in the red brick house she could almost forget him. In her mind and heart, she was Scarlett O’Hara again, the belle of the County. Her thoughts and activities were the same as they had been in the old days, but the field of her activities had widened immensely. Careless of the disapproval of Aunt Pitty’s friends, she behaved as she had behaved before her marriage, went to parties, danced, went riding with soldiers, flirted, did everything she had done as a girl, except stop wearing mourning. This she knew would be a straw that would break the backs of Pittypat and Melanie. She was as charming a widow as she had been a girl, pleasant when she had her own way, obliging as long as it did not discommode her, vain of her looks and her popularity.

She was happy now where a few weeks before she had been miserable, happy with her beaux and their reassurances of her charm, as happy as she could be with Ashley married to Melanie and in danger. But somehow it was easier to bear the thought of Ashley belonging to some one else when he was far away. With the hundreds of miles stretching between Atlanta and Virginia, he sometimes seemed as much hers as Melanie’s.

So the autumn months of 1862 went swiftly by with nursing, dancing, driving and bandage rolling taking up all the time she did not spend on brief visits to Tara. These visits were disappointing, for she had little opportunity for the long quiet talks with her mother to which she looked forward while in Atlanta, no time to sit by Ellen while she sewed, smelling the faint fragrance of lemon verbena sachet as her skirts rustled, feeling her soft hands on her cheek in a gentle caress.

Ellen was thin and preoccupied now and on her feet from morning until long after the plantation was asleep. The demands of the Confederate commissary were growing heavier by the month, and hers was the task of making Tara produce. Even Gerald was busy, for the first time in many years, for he could get no overseer to take Jonas Wilkerson’s place and he was riding his own acres. With Ellen too busy for more than a goodnight kiss and Gerald in the fields all day, Scarlett found Tara boring. Even her sisters were taken up with their own concerns. Suellen had now come to an “understanding” with Frank Kennedy and sang “When This Cruel War Is Over” with an arch meaning Scarlett found well-nigh unendurable, and Carreen was too wrapped up in dreams of Brent Tarleton to be interesting company.

Though Scarlett always went home to Tara with a happy heart, she was never sorry when the inevitable letters came from Pitty and Melanie, begging her to return. Ellen always sighed at these times, saddened by the thought of her oldest daughter and her only grandchild leaving her.

“But I mustn’t be selfish and keep you here when you are needed to nurse in Atlanta,” she said. “Only—only, my darling, it seems that I never get the time to talk to you and to feel that you are my own little girl again before you are gone from me.”

“I’m always your little girl,” Scarlett would say and bury her head upon Ellen’s breast, her guilt rising up to accuse her. She did not tell her mother that it was the dancing and the beaux which drew her back to Atlanta and not the service of the Confederacy. There were many things she kept from her mother these days. But, most of all, she kept secret the fact that Rhett Butler called frequently at Aunt Pittypat’s house.

During the months that followed the bazaar, Rhett called whenever he was in town, taking Scarlett riding in his carriage, escorting her to danceables and bazaars and waiting outside the hospital to drive her home. She lost her fear of his betraying her secret, but there always lurked in the back of her mind the disquieting memory that he had seen her at her worst and knew the truth about Ashley. It was this knowledge that checked her tongue when he annoyed her. And he annoyed her frequently.

He was in his mid-thirties, older than any beau she had ever had, and she was as helpless as a child to control and handle him as she had handled beaux nearer her own age. He always looked as if nothing had ever surprised him and much had amused him and, when he had gotten her into a speechless temper, she felt that she amused him more than anything in the world. Frequently she flared into open wrath under his expert baiting, for she had Gerald’s Irish temper along with the deceptive sweetness of face she had inherited from Ellen. Heretofore she had never bothered to control her temper except in Ellen’s presence. Now it was painful to have to choke back words for fear of his amused grin. If only he would ever lose his temper too, then she would not feel at such a disadvantage.

After tilts with him from which she seldom emerged the victor she vowed he was impossible, ill-bred and no gentleman and she would have nothing more to do with him. But sooner or later, he returned to Atlanta, called, presumably on Aunt Pitty, and presented Scarlett, with overdone gallantry, a box of bonbons he had brought her from Nassau. Or preempted a seat by her at a musicale or claimed her at a dance, and she was usually so amused by his bland impudence that she laughed and overlooked his past misdeeds until the next occurred.

For all his exasperating qualities, she grew to look forward to his calls. There was something exciting about him that she could not analyze, something different from any man she had ever known. There was something breathtaking in the grace of his big body which made his very entrance into a room like an abrupt physical impact, something in the impertinence and bland mockery of his dark eyes that challenged her spirit to subdue him.

“It’s almost like I was in love with him!” she thought, bewildered. “But I’m not and I just can’t understand it.”

But the exciting feeling persisted. When he came to call, his complete masculinity made Aunt Pitty’s well-bred and ladylike house seem small, pale and a trifle fusty. Scarlett was not the only member of the household who reacted strangely and unwillingly to his presence, for he kept Aunt Pitty in a flutter and a ferment.

While Pitty knew Ellen would disapprove of his calls on her daughter, and knew also that the edict of Charleston banning him from polite society was not one to be lightly disregarded, she could no more resist his elaborate compliments and hand kissing than a fly can resist a honey pot. Moreover, he usually brought her some little gift from Nassau which he assured her he had purchased especially for her and blockaded in at risk of his life—papers of pins and needles, buttons, spools of silk thread and hairpins. It was almost impossible to obtain these small luxuries now—ladies were wearing hand-whittled wooden hairpins and covering acorns with cloth for buttons—and Pitty lacked the moral stamina to refuse them. Besides, she had a childish love of surprise packages and could not resist opening his gifts. And, having once opened them, she did not feel that she could refuse them. Then, having accepted his gifts, she could not summon courage enough to tell him his reputation made it improper for him to call on three lone women who had no male protector. Aunt Pitty always felt that she needed a male protector when Rhett Butler was in the house.

“I don’t know what it is about him,” she would sigh helplessly. “But—well, I think he’d be a nice, attractive man if I could just feel that—well, that deep down in his heart he respected women.”

Since the return of her wedding ring, Melanie had felt that Rhett was a gentleman of rare refinement and delicacy and she was shocked at this remark. He was unfailingly courteous to her, but she was a little timid with him, largely because she was shy with any man she had not known from childhood. Secretly she was very sorry for him, a feeling which would have amused him had he been aware of it. She was certain that some romantic sorrow had blighted his life and made him hard and bitter, and she felt that what he needed was the love of a good woman. In all her sheltered life she had never seen evil and could scarcely credit its existence, and when gossip whispered things about Rhett and the girl in Charleston she was shocked and unbelieving. And, instead of turning her against him, it only made her more timidly gracious toward him because of her indignation at what she fancied was a gross injustice done him.

Scarlett silently agreed with Aunt Pitty. She, too, felt that he had no respect for any woman, unless perhaps for Melanie. She still felt unclothed every time his eyes ran up and down her figure. It was not that he ever said anything. Then she could have scorched him with hot words. It was the bold way his eyes looked out of his swarthy face with a displeasing air of insolence, as if all women were his property to be enjoyed in his own good time. Only with Melanie was this look absent. There was never that cool look of appraisal, never mockery in his eyes, when he looked at Melanie; and there was an especial note in his voice when he spoke to her, courteous, respectful, anxious to be of service.

“I don’t see why you’re so much nicer to her than to me,” said Scarlett petulantly, one afternoon when Melanie and Pitty had retired to take their naps and she was alone with him.

For an hour she had watched Rhett hold the yarn Melanie was winding for knitting, had noted the blank inscrutable expression when Melanie talked at length and with pride of Ashley and his promotion. Scarlett knew Rhett had no exalted opinion of Ashley and cared nothing at all about the fact that he had been made a major. Yet he made polite replies and murmured the correct things about Ashley’s gallantry.

And if I so much as mention Ashley’s name, she had thought irritably, he cocks his eyebrow up and smiles that nasty, knowing smile!

“I’m much prettier than she is,” she continued, “and I don’t see why you’re nicer to her.”

“Dare I hope that you are jealous?”

“Oh, don’t presume!”

“Another hope crushed. If I am ‘nicer’ to Mrs. Wilkes, it is because she deserves it. She is one of the very few kind, sincere and unselfish persons I have ever known. But perhaps you have failed to note these qualities. And moreover, for all her youth, she is one of the few great ladies I have ever been privileged to know.”

“Do you mean to say you don’t think I’m a great lady, too?”

“I think we agreed on the occasion of our first meeting that you were no lady at all.”

“Oh, if you are going to be hateful and rude enough to bring that up again! How can you hold that bit of childish temper against me? That was so long ago and I’ve grown up since then and I’d forget all about it if you weren’t always harping and hinting about it.”

“I don’t think it was childish temper and I don’t believe you’ve changed. You are just as capable now as then of throwing vases if you don’t get your own way. But you usually get your way now. And so there’s no necessity for broken bric-a-brac.”

“Oh, you are—I wish I was a man! I’d call you out and—”

“And get killed for your pains. I can drill a dime at fifty yards. Better stick to your own weapons—dimples, vases and the like.”

“You are just a rascal.”

“Do you expect me to fly into a rage at that? I am sorry to disappoint you. You can’t make me mad by calling me names that are true. Certainly I’m a rascal, and why not? It’s a free country and a man may be a rascal if he chooses. It’s only hypocrites like you, my dear lady, just as black at heart but trying to hide it, who become enraged when called by their right names.”

She was helpless before his calm smile and his drawling remarks, for she had never before met anyone who was so completely impregnable. Her weapons of scorn, coldness and abuse blunted in her hands, for nothing she could say would shame him. It had been her experience that the liar was the hottest to defend his veracity, the coward his courage, the ill-bred his gentlemanliness, and the cad his honor. But not Rhett. He admitted everything and laughed and dared her to say more.

He came and went during these months, arriving unheralded and leaving without saying good-by. Scarlett never discovered just what business brought him to Atlanta, for few other blockaders found it necessary to come so far away from the coast. They landed their cargoes at Wilmington or Charleston, where they were met by swarms of merchants and speculators from all over the South who assembled to buy blockaded goods at auction. It would have pleased her to think that he made these trips to see her, but even her abnormal vanity refused to believe this. If he had ever once made love to her, seemed jealous of the other men who crowded about her, even tried to hold her hand or begged for a picture or a handkerchief to cherish, she would have thought triumphantly he had been caught by her charms. But he remained annoyingly unloverlike and, worst of all, seemed to see through all her maneuverings to bring him to his knees.

Whenever he came to town, there was a feminine fluttering. Not only did the romantic aura of the dashing blockader hang about him but there was also the titillating element of the wicked and the forbidden. He had such a bad reputation! And every time the matrons of Atlanta gathered together to gossip, his reputation grew worse, which only made him all the more glamorous to the young girls. As most of them were quite innocent, they had heard little more than that he was “quite loose with women”— and exactly how a man went about the business of being “loose” they did not know. They also heard whispers that no girl was safe with him. With such a reputation, it was strange that he had never so much as kissed the hand of an unmarried girl since he first appeared in Atlanta. But that only served to make him more mysterious and more exciting.

Outside of the army heroes, he was the most talked-about man in Atlanta. Everyone knew in detail how he had been expelled from West Point for drunkenness and “something about women.” That terrific scandal concerning the Charleston girl he had compromised and the brother he had killed was public property. Correspondence with Charleston friends elicited the further information that his father, a charming old gentleman with an iron will and a ramrod for a backbone, had cast him out without a penny when he was twenty and even stricken his name from the family Bible. After that he had wandered to California in the gold rush of 1849 and thence to South America and Cuba, and the reports of his activities in these parts were none too savory. Scrapes about women, several shootings, gun running to the revolutionists in Central America and, worst of all, professional gambling were included in his career, as Atlanta heard it.

There was hardly a family in Georgia who could not own to their sorrow at least one male member or relative who gambled, losing money, houses, land and slaves. But that was different. A man could gamble himself to poverty and still be a gentleman, but a professional gambler could never be anything but an outcast.

Had it not been for the upset conditions due to the war and his own services to the Confederate government, Rhett Butler would never have been received in Atlanta. But now, even the most strait laced felt that patriotism called upon them to be more broad minded. The more sentimental were inclined to view that the black sheep of the Butler family had repented of his evil ways and was making an attempt to atone for his sins. So the ladies felt in duty bound to stretch a point, especially in the case of so intrepid a blockader. Everyone knew now that the fate of the Confederacy rested as much upon the skill of the blockade boats in eluding the Yankee fleet as it did upon the soldiers at the front.

Rumor had it that Captain Butler was one of the best pilots in the South and that he was reckless and utterly without nerves. Reared in Charleston, he knew every inlet, creek, shoal and rock of the Carolina coast near that port, and he was equally at home in the waters around Wilmington. He had never lost a boat or even been forced to dump a cargo. At the onset of the war, he had emerged from obscurity with enough money to buy a small swift boat and now, when blockaded goods realized two thousand per cent on each cargo, he owned four boats. He had good pilots and paid them well, and they slid out of Charleston and Wilmington on dark nights, bearing cotton for Nassau, England and Canada. The cotton mills of England were standing idle and the workers were starving, and any blockader who could outwit the Yankee fleet could command his own price in Liverpool. Rhett’s boats were singularly lucky both in taking out cotton for the Confederacy and bringing in the war materials for which the South was desperate. Yes, the ladies felt they could forgive and forget a great many things for such a brave man.

He was a dashing figure and one that people turned to look at. He spent money freely, rode a wild black stallion, and wore clothes which were always the height of style and tailoring. The latter in itself was enough to attract attention to him, for the uniforms of the soldiers were dingy and worn now and the civilians, even when turned out in their best, showed skillful patching and darning. Scarlett thought she had never seen such elegant pants as he wore, fawn colored, shepherd’s plaid, and checked. As for his waistcoats, they were indescribably handsome, especially the white watered-silk one with tiny pink rosebuds embroidered on it. And he wore these garments with a still more elegant air as though unaware of their glory.

There were few ladies who could resist his charms when he chose to exert them, and finally even Mrs. Merriwether unbent and invited him to Sunday dinner.

Maybelle Merriwether was to marry her little Zouave when he got his next furlough, and she cried every time she thought of it, for she had set her heart on marrying in a white satin dress and there was no white satin in the Confederacy. Nor could she borrow a dress, for the satin wedding dresses of years past had all gone into the making of battle flags. Useless for the patriotic Mrs. Merriwether to upbraid her daughter and point out that homespun was the proper bridal attire for a Confederate bride. Maybelle wanted satin. She was willing, even proud to go without hairpins and buttons and nice shoes and candy and tea for the sake of the Cause, but she wanted a satin wedding dress.

Rhett, hearing of this from Melanie, brought in from England yards and yards of gleaming white satin and a lace veil and presented them to her as a wedding gift. He did it in such a way that it was unthinkable to even mention paying him for them, and Maybelle was so delighted she almost kissed him. Mrs. Merriwether knew that so expensive a gift—and a gift of clothing at that—was highly improper, but she could think of no way of refusing when Rhett told her in the most florid language that nothing was too good to deck the bride of one of our brave heroes. So Mrs. Merriwether invited him to dinner, feeling that this concession more than paid for the gift.

He not only brought Maybelle the satin but he was able to give excellent hints on the making of the wedding dress. Hoops in Paris were wider this season and skirts were shorter. They were no longer ruffled but were gathered up in scalloped festoons, showing braided petticoats beneath. He said, too, that he had seen no pantalets on the streets, so he imagined they were “out.” Afterwards, Mrs. Merriwether told Mrs. Elsing she feared that if she had given him any encouragement at all, he would have told her exactly what kind of drawers were being worn by Parisiennes.

Had he been less obviously masculine, his ability to recall details of dresses, bonnets and coiffures would have been put down as the rankest effeminacy. The ladies always felt a little odd when they besieged him with questions about styles, but they did it nevertheless. They were as isolated from the world of fashion as shipwrecked mariners, for few books of fashion came through the blockade. For all they knew the ladies of France might be shaving their heads and wearing coonskin caps, so Rhett’s memory for furbelows was an excellent substitute for Godey’s Lady’s Book. He could and did notice details so dear to feminine hearts, and after each trip abroad he could be found in the center of a group of ladies, telling that bonnets were smaller this year and perched higher, covering most of the top of the head, that plumes and not flowers were being used to trim them, that the Empress of France had abandoned the chignon for evening wear and had her hair piled almost on the top of her head, showing all of her ears, and that evening frocks were shockingly low again.

For some months, he was the most popular and romantic figure the town knew, despite his previous reputation, despite the faint rumors that he was engaged not only in blockading but in speculating on foodstuffs, too. People who did not like him said that after every trip he made to Atlanta, prices jumped five dollars. But even with this under-cover gossip seeping about, he could have retained his popularity had he considered it worth retaining. Instead, it seemed as though, after trying the company of the staid and patriotic citizens and winning their respect and grudging liking, something perverse in him made him go out of his way to affront them and show them that his conduct had been only a masquerade and one which no longer amused him.

It was as though he bore an impersonal contempt for everyone and everything in the South, the Confederacy in particular, and took no pains to conceal it. It was his remarks about the Confederacy that made Atlanta look at him first in bewilderment, then coolly and then with hot rage. Even before 1862 passed into 1863, men were bowing to him with studied frigidity and women beginning to draw their daughters to their sides when he appeared at a gathering.

He seemed to take pleasure not only in affronting the sincere and red-hot loyalties of Atlanta but in presenting himself in the worst possible light. When well-meaning people complimented him on his bravery in running the blockade, he blandly replied that he was always frightened when in danger, as frightened as were the brave boys at the front. Everyone knew there had never been a cowardly Confederate soldier and they found this statement peculiarly irritating. He always referred to the soldiers as “our brave boys” and “our heroes in gray” and did it in such a way as to convey the utmost in insult. When daring young ladies, hoping for a flirtation, thanked him for being one of the heroes who fought for them, he bowed and declared that such was not the case, for he would do the same thing for Yankee women if the same amount of money were involved.

Since Scarlett’s first meeting with him in Atlanta on the night of the bazaar, he had talked with her in this manner, but now there was a thinly veiled note of mockery in his conversations with everyone. When praised for his services to the Confederacy, he unfailingly replied that blockading was a business with him. If he could make as much money out of government contracts, he would say, picking out with his eyes those who had government contracts, then he would certainly abandon the hazards of blockading and take to selling shoddy cloth, sanded sugar, spoiled flour and rotten leather to the Confederacy.

Most of his remarks were unanswerable, which made them all the worse. There had already been minor scandals about those holding government contracts. Letters from men at the front complained constantly of shoes that wore out in a week, gunpowder that would not ignite, harness that snapped at any strain, meat that was rotten and flour that was full of weevils. Atlanta people tried to think that the men who sold such stuff to the government must be contract holders from Alabama or Virginia or Tennessee, and not Georgians. For did not the Georgia contract holders include men from the very best families? Were they not the first to contribute to the hospital funds and to the aid of soldiers’ orphans? Were they not the first to cheer at “Dixie” and the most rampant seekers, in oratory at least, for Yankee blood? The full tide of fury against those profiteering on government contracts had not yet risen, and Rhett’s words were taken merely as evidence of his own bad breeding.

He not only affronted the town with insinuations of venality on the part of men in high places and slurs on the courage of the men in the field, but he took pleasure in tricking the dignified citizenry into embarrassing situations. He could no more resist pricking the conceits, the hypocrisies and the flamboyant patriotism of those about him than a small boy can resist putting a pin into a balloon. He neatly deflated the pompous and exposed the ignorant and the bigoted, and he did it in such subtle ways, drawing his victims out by his seemingly courteous interest, that they never were quite certain what had happened until they stood exposed as windy, high flown and slightly ridiculous.

During the months when the town accepted him, Scarlett had been under no illusions about him. She knew that his elaborate gallantries and his florid speeches were all done with his tongue in his cheek. She knew that he was acting the part of the dashing and patriotic blockade runner simply because it amused him. Sometimes he seemed to her like the County boys with whom she had grown up, the wild Tarleton twins with their obsession for practical jokes; the devil-inspired Fontaines, teasing, mischievous; the Calverts who would sit up all night planning hoaxes. But there was a difference, for beneath Rhett’s seeming lightness there was something malicious, almost sinister in its suave brutality.

Though she was thoroughly aware of his insincerity, she much preferred him in the role of the romantic blockader. For one thing, it made her own situation in associating with him so much easier than it had been at first. So, she was intensely annoyed when he dropped his masquerade and set out apparently upon a deliberate campaign to alienate Atlanta’s good will. It annoyed her because it seemed foolish and also because some of the harsh criticism directed at him fell on her.

It was at Mrs. Elsing’s silver musicale for the benefit of the convalescents that Rhett signed his final warrant of ostracism. That afternoon the Elsing home was crowded with soldiers on leave and men from the hospitals, members of the Home Guard and the militia unit, and matrons, widows and young girls. Every chair in the house was occupied, and even the long winding stair was packed with guests. The large cut-glass bowl held at the door by the Elsings’ butler had been emptied twice of its burden of silver coins. That in itself was enough to make the affair a success, for now a dollar in silver was worth sixty dollars in Confederate paper money.

Every girl with any pretense to accomplishments had sung or played the piano, and the tableaux vivants had been greeted with flattering applause. Scarlett was much pleased with herself, for not only had she and Melanie rendered a touching duet, “When the Dew Is on the Blossom,” followed as an encore by the more sprightly “Oh, Lawd, Ladies, Don’t Mind Stephen!” but she had also been chosen to represent the Spirit of the Confederacy in the last tableau.

She had looked most fetching, wearing a modestly draped Greek robe of white cheesecloth girdled with red and blue and holding the Stars and Bars in one hand, while with the other she stretched out to the kneeling Captain Carey Ashburn, of Alabama, the gold-hilted saber which had belonged to Charles and his father.

When her tableau was over, she could not help seeking Rhett’s eyes to see if he had appreciated the pretty picture she made. With a feeling of exasperation she saw that he was in an argument and probably had not even noticed her. Scarlett could see by the faces of the group surrounding him that they were infuriated by what he was saying.

She made her way toward them and, in one of those odd silences which sometimes fall on a gathering, she heard Willie Guinan, of the militia outfit, say plainly: “Do I understand, sir, that you mean the Cause for which our heroes have died is not sacred?”

“If you were run over by a railroad train your death wouldn’t sanctify the railroad company, would it?” asked Rhett and his voice sounded as if he were humbly seeking information.

“Sir,” said Willie, his voice shaking, “if we were not under this roof—”

“I tremble to think what would happen,” said Rhett. “For, of course, your bravery is too well known.”

Willie went scarlet and all conversation ceased. Everyone was embarrassed. Willie was strong and healthy and of military age and yet he wasn’t at the front. Of course, he was the only boy his mother had and, after all, somebody had to be in the militia to protect the state. But there were a few irreverent snickers from convalescent officers when Rhett spoke of bravery.

“Oh, why doesn’t he keep his mouth shut!” thought Scarlett indignantly. “He’s simply spoiling the whole party!”

Dr. Meade’s brows were thunderous.

“Nothing may be sacred to you, young man,” he said, in the voice he always used when making speeches. “But there are many things sacred to the patriotic men and ladies of the South. And the freedom of our land from the usurper is one and States’ Rights is another and—”

Rhett looked lazy and his voice had a silky, almost bored, note.

“All wars are sacred,” he said. “To those who have to fight them. If the people who started wars didn’t make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is ‘Save the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!’ Sometimes it’s ‘Down with Popery!’ and sometimes ‘Liberty!’ and sometimes ‘Cotton, Slavery and States’ Rights!’”

“What on earth has the Pope to do with it?” thought Scarlett. “Or Christ’s tomb, either?”

But as she hurried toward the incensed group, she saw Rhett bow jauntily and start toward the doorway through the crowd. She started after him but Mrs. Elsing caught her skirt and held her.

“Let him go,” she said in a clear voice that carried throughout the tensely quiet room. “Let him go. He is a traitor, a speculator! He is a viper that we have nursed to our bosoms!”

Rhett, standing in the hall, his hat in his hand, heard as he was intended to hear and, turning, surveyed the room for a moment. He looked pointedly at Mrs. Elsing’s flat bosom, grinned suddenly and, bowing, made his exit.

Mrs. Merriwether rode home in Aunt Pitty’s carriage, and scarcely had the four ladies seated themselves when she exploded.

“There now, Pittypat Hamilton! I hope you are satisfied!”

“With what?” cried Pitty, apprehensively.

“With the conduct of that wretched Butler man you’ve been harboring.”

Pittypat fluttered, too upset by the accusation to recall that Mrs. Merriwether had also been Rhett Butler’s hostess on several occasions. Scarlett and Melanie thought of this, but bred to politeness to their elders, refrained from remarking on the matter. Instead they studiously looked down at their mittened hands.

“He insulted us all and the Confederacy too,” said Mrs. Merriwether, and her stout bust heaved violently beneath its glittering passementerie trimmings. “Saying that we were fighting for money! Saying that our leaders had lied to us! He should be put in jail. Yes, he should. I shall speak to Dr. Meade about it. If Mr. Merriwether were only alive, he’d tend to him! Now, Pitty Hamilton, you listen to me. You mustn’t ever let that scamp come into your house again!”

“Oh,” mumbled Pitty, helplessly, looking as if she wished she were dead. She looked appealingly at the two girls who kept their eyes cast down and then hopefully toward Uncle Peter’s erect back. She knew he was listening attentively to every word and she hoped he would turn and take a hand in the conversation, as he frequently did. She hoped he would say: “Now, Miss Dolly, you let Miss Pitty be,” but Peter made no move. He disapproved heartily of Rhett Butler and poor Pitty knew it. She sighed and said: “Well, Dolly, if you think—”

“I do think,” returned Mrs. Merriwether firmly. “I can’t imagine what possessed you to receive him in the first place. After this afternoon, there won’t be a decent home in town that he’ll be welcome in. Do get up some gumption and forbid him your house.”

She turned a sharp eye on the girls. “I hope you two are marking my words,” she continued, “for it’s partly your fault, being so pleasant to him. Just tell him politely but firmly that his presence and his disloyal talk are distinctly unwelcome at your house.”

By this time Scarlett was boiling, ready to rear like a horse at the touch of a strange rough hand on its bridle. But she was afraid to speak. She could not risk Mrs. Merriwether writing another letter to her mother.

“You old buffalo!” she thought, her face crimson with suppressed fury. “How heavenly it would be to tell you just what I think of you and your bossy ways!”

“I never thought to live long enough to hear such disloyal words spoken of our Cause,” went on Mrs. Merriwether, by this time in a ferment of righteous anger. “Any man who does not think our Cause is just and holy should be hanged! I don’t want to hear of you two girls ever even speaking to him again—For Heaven’s sake, Melly, what ails you?”

Melanie was white and her eyes were enormous.

“I will speak to him again,” she said in a low voice. “I will not be rude to him. I will not forbid him the house.”

Mrs. Merriwether’s breath went out of her lungs as explosively as though she had been punched. Aunt Pitty’s fat mouth popped open and Uncle Peter turned to stare.

“Now, why didn’t I have the gumption to say that?” thought Scarlett, jealousy mixing with admiration. “How did that little rabbit ever get up spunk enough to stand up to old lady Merriwether?”

Melanie’s hands were shaking but she went on hurriedly, as though fearing her courage would fail her if she delayed.

“I won’t be rude to him because of what he said, because—It was rude of him to say it out loud—most ill advised—but it’s—it’s what Ashley thinks. And I can’t forbid the house to a man who thinks what my husband thinks. It would be unjust.”

Mrs. Merriwether’s breath had come back and she charged.

“Melly Hamilton, I never heard such a lie in all my life! There was never a Wilkes who was a coward—”

“I never said Ashley was a coward,” said Melanie, her eyes beginning to flash. “I said he thinks what Captain Butler thinks, only he expresses it in different words. And he doesn’t go around saying it at musicales, I hope. But he has written it to me.”

Scarlett’s guilty conscience stirred as she tried to recall what Ashley might have written that would lead Melanie to make such a statement, but most of the letters she had read had gone out of her head as soon as she finished reading them. She believed Melanie had simply taken leave of her senses.

“Ashley wrote me that we should not be fighting the Yankees. And that we have been betrayed into it by statesmen and orators mouthing catchwords and prejudices,” said Melly rapidly. “He said nothing in the world was worth what this war was going to do to us. He said here wasn’t anything at all to glory—it was just misery and dirt.”

“Oh! That letter,” thought Scarlett. “Was that what he meant?”

“I don’t believe it,” said Mrs. Merriwether firmly. “You misunderstood his meaning.”

“I never misunderstand Ashley,” Melanie replied quietly, though her lips were trembling. “I understand him perfectly. He meant exactly what Captain Butler meant, only he didn’t say it in a rude way.”

“You should be ashamed of yourself, comparing a fine man like Ashley Wilkes to a scoundrel like Captain Butler! I suppose you, too, think the Cause is nothing!”

“I— I don’t know what I think,” Melanie began uncertainly, her fire deserting her and panic at her outspokenness taking hold of her. “I— I’d die for the Cause, like Ashley would. But—I mean—I mean, I’ll let the men folks do the thinking, because they are so much smarter.”

“I never heard the like,” snorted Mrs. Merriwether. “Stop, Uncle Peter, you’re driving past my house!”

Uncle Peter, preoccupied with the conversation behind him, had driven past the Merriwether carriage block and he backed up the horse. Mrs. Merriwether alighted, her bonnet ribbons shaking like sails in a storm.

“You’ll be sorry,” she said.

Uncle Peter whipped up the horse.

“You young misses ought ter tek shame, gittin’ Miss Pitty in a state,” he scolded.

“I’m not in a state,” replied Pitty, surprisingly, for less strain than this had frequently brought on fainting fits. “Melly, honey, I knew you were doing it just to take up for me and, really, I was glad to see somebody take Dolly down a peg. She’s so bossy. How did you have the courage? But do you think you should have said that about Ashley?”

“But it’s true,” answered Melanie and she began to cry softly. “And I’m not ashamed that he thinks that way. He thinks the war is all wrong but he’s willing to fight and die anyway, and that takes lots more courage than fighting for something you think is right.”

“Lawd, Miss Melly, doan cry hyah on Peachtree Street,” groaned Uncle Peter, hastening his horse’s pace. “Folks’ll talk sumpin’ scan’lous. Wait till us gits home.”

Scarlett said nothing. She did not even squeeze the hand that Melanie had inserted into her palm for comfort. She had read Ashley’s letters for only one purpose—to assure herself that he still loved her. Now Melanie had given a new meaning to passages in the letters which Scarlett’s eyes had barely seen. It shocked her to realize that anyone as absolutely perfect as Ashley could have any thought in common with such a reprobate as Rhett Butler. She thought: “They both see the truth of this war, but Ashley is willing to die about it and Rhett isn’t. I think that shows Rhett’s good sense.” She paused a moment, horror struck that she could have such a thought about Ashley. “They both see the same unpleasant truth, but Rhett likes to look it in the face and enrage people by talking about it—and Ashley can hardly bear to face it.”

It was very bewildering.

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