“If you think that Ashley would—”
“Ah, so it’s Ashley, and not you, who has fought the fight for purity. Really, Scarlett, you should not give yourself away so easily.”
Scarlett looked into his smooth unreadable face in confusion and indignation.
“We won’t go any further with this and I don’t want your money. So, get out!”
“Oh, yes, you do want my money and, as we’ve gone this far, why stop? Surely there can be no harm in discussing so chaste an idyll—when there hasn’t been anything wrong. So Ashley loves you for your mind, your soul, your nobility of character?”
Scarlett writhed at his words. Of course, Ashley loved her for just these things. It was this knowledge that made life endurable, this knowledge that Ashley, bound by honor, loved her from afar for beautiful things deep buried in her that he alone could see. But they did not seem so beautiful when dragged to the light by Rhett, especially in that deceptively smooth voice that covered sarcasm.
“It gives me back my boyish ideals to know that such a love can exist in this naughty world,” he continued. “So there’s no touch of the flesh in his love for you? It would be the same if you were ugly and didn’t have that white skin? And if you didn’t have those green eyes which make a man wonder just what you would do if he took you in his arms? And a way of swaying your hips, that’s an allurement to any man under ninety? And those lips which are—well, I mustn’t let my carnal lusts obtrude. Ashley sees none of these things? Or if he sees them, they move him not at all?”
Unbidden, Scarlett’s mind went back to that day in the orchard when Ashley’s arms shook as he held her, when his mouth was hot on hers as if he would never let her go. She went crimson at the memory and her blush was not lost on Rhett.
“So,” he said and there was a vibrant note almost like anger in his voice. “I see. He loves you for your mind alone.”
How dare he pry with dirty fingers, making the one beautiful sacred thing in her life seem vile? Coolly, determinedly, he was breaking down the last of her reserves and the information he wanted was forthcoming.
“Yes, he does!” she cried, pushing back the memory of Ashley’s lips.
“My dear, he doesn’t even know you’ve got a mind. If it was your mind that attracted him, he would not need to struggle against you, as he must have done to keep this love so—shall we say “holy”? He could rest easily for, after all, a man can admire a woman’s mind and soul and still be an honorable gentleman and true to his wife. But it must be difficult for him to reconcile the honor of the Wilkeses with coveting your body as he does.”
“You judge everybody’s mind by your own vile one!”
“Oh, I’ve never denied coveting you, if that’s what you mean. But, thank God, I’m not bothered about matters of honor. What I want I take if I can get it, and so I wrestle neither with angels nor devils. What a merry hell you must have made for Ashley! Almost I can be sorry for him.”
“I—I make a hell for him?”
“Yes, you! There you are, a constant temptation to him, but like most of his breed he prefers what passes in these parts as honor to any amount of love. And it looks to me as if the poor devil now had neither love nor honor to warm himself!”
“He has love! ... I mean, he loves me!”
“Does he? Then answer me this and we are through for the day and you can take the money and throw it in the gutter for all I care.”
Rhett rose to his feet and threw his half-smoked cigar into the spittoon. There was about his movements the same pagan freedom and leashed power Scarlett had noted that night Atlanta fell, something sinister and a little frightening. “If he loved you, then why in hell did he permit you to come to Atlanta to get the tax money? Before I’d let a woman I loved do that, I’d—”
“He didn’t know! He had no idea that I—”
“Doesn’t it occur to you that he should have known?” There was barely suppressed savagery in his voice. “Loving you as you say he does, he should have known just what you would do when you were desperate. He should have killed you rather than let you come up here—and to me, of all people! God in Heaven!”
“But he didn’t know!”
“If he didn’t guess it without being told, he’ll never know anything about you and your precious mind.”
How unfair he was! As if Ashley was a mind reader! As if Ashley could have stopped her, even had he known! But, she knew suddenly, Ashley could have stopped her. The faintest intimation from him, in the orchard, that some day things might be different and she would never have thought of going to Rhett. A word of tenderness, even a parting caress when she was getting on the train, would have held her back. But he had only talked of honor. Yet—was Rhett right? Should Ashley have known her mind? Swiftly she put the disloyal thought from her. Of course, he didn’t suspect. Ashley would never suspect that she would even think of doing anything so immoral. Ashley was too fine to have such thoughts. Rhett was just trying to spoil her love. He was trying to tear down what was most precious to her. Some day, she thought viciously, when the store was on its feet and the mill doing nicely and she had money, she would make Rhett Butler pay for the misery and humiliation he was causing her.
He was standing over her, looking down at her, faintly amused. The emotion which had stirred him was gone.
“What does it all matter to you anyway?” she asked. “It’s my business and Ashley’s and not yours.”
He shrugged.
“Only this. I have a deep and impersonal admiration for your endurance, Scarlett, and I do not like to see your spirit crushed beneath too many millstones. There’s Tara. That’s a man-sized job in itself. There’s your sick father added on. He’ll never be any help to you. And the girls and the darkies. And now you’ve taken on a husband and probably Miss Pittypat, too. You’ve enough burdens without Ashley Wilkes and his family on your hands.”
“He’s not on my hands. He helps—”
