CHAPTER 36

-six
SHE MARRIED FRANK KENNEDY two weeks later after a whirlwind courtship
which she blushingly told him left her too breathless to oppose his ardor
any longer.
He did not know that during those two weeks she had walked the floor
at night, gritting her teeth at the slowness with which he took hints and
encouragements, praying that no untimely letter from Suellen would reach
him and ruin her plans. She thanked God that her sister was the poorest of
correspondents, delighting to receive letters and disliking to write them.
But there was always a chance, always a chance, she thought in the long
night hours as she padded back and forth across the cold floor of her
bedroom, with Ellen’s faded shawl clutched about her nightdress. Frank did
not know she had received a laconic letter from Will, relating that Jonas
Wilkerson had paid another call at Tara and, finding her gone to Atlanta,
had stormed about until Will and Ashley threw him bodily off the place.
Will’s letter hammered into her mind the fact she knew only too well—
that time was getting shorter and shorter before the extra taxes must be
paid. A fierce desperation drove her as she saw the days slipping by and she
wished she might grasp the hourglass in her hands and keep the sands from
running.
But so well did she conceal her feelings, so well did she enact her role,
Frank suspected nothing, saw no more than what lay on the surface—the
pretty and helpless young widow of Charles Hamilton who greeted him
every night in Miss Pittypat’s parlor and listened, breathless with
admiration, as he told of future plans for his store and how much money he
expected to make when he was able to buy the sawmill. Her sweet
sympathy and her bright-eyed interest in every word he uttered were balm
upon the wound left by Suellen’s supposed defection. His heart was sore
and bewildered at Suellen’s conduct and his vanity, the shy, touchy vanity

of a middle-aged bachelor who knows himself to be unattractive to women,
was deeply wounded. He could not write Suellen, upbraiding her for her
faithlessness; he shrank from the very idea. But he could ease his heart by
talking about her to Scarlett. Without saying a disloyal word about Suellen,
she could tell him she understood how badly her sister had treated him and
what good treatment he merited from a woman who really appreciated
him.
Little Mrs. Hamilton was such a pretty pink-cheeked person, alternating
between melancholy sighs when she thought of her sad plight, and laughter
as gay and sweet as the tinkling of tiny silver bells when he made small
jokes to cheer her. Her green gown, now neatly cleaned by Mammy,
showed off her slender figure with its tiny waist to perfection, and how
bewitching was the faint fragrance which always clung about her
handkerchief and her hair! It was a shame that such a fine little woman
should be alone and helpless in a world so rough that she didn’t even
understand its harshness. No husband nor brother nor even a father now to
protect her. Frank thought the world too rude a place for a lone woman
and, in that idea, Scarlett silently and heartily concurred.
He came to call every night, for the atmosphere of Pitty’s house was
pleasant and soothing. Mammy’s smile at the front door was the smile
reserved for quality folks, Pitty served him coffee laced with brandy and
fluttered about him and Scarlett hung on his every utterance. Sometimes in
the afternoons he took Scarlett riding with him in his buggy when he went
out on business. These rides were merry affairs because she asked so many
foolish questions—“just like a woman,” he told himself approvingly. He
couldn’t help laughing at her ignorance about business matters and she
laughed too, saying: “Well, of course, you can’t expect a silly little woman
like me to understand men’s affairs.”
She made him feel, for the first time in his old-maidish life, that he was
a strong upstanding man fashioned by God in a nobler mold than other
men, fashioned to protect silly helpless women.
When, at last, they stood together to be married, her confiding little
hand in his and her downcast lashes throwing thick black crescents on her
pink cheeks, he still did not know how it all came about. He only knew he
had done something romantic and exciting for the first time in his life. He,

Frank Kennedy, had swept this lovely creature off her feet and into his
strong arms. That was a heady feeling.
No friend or relative stood up with them at their marriage. The
witnesses were strangers called in from the street. Scarlett had insisted on
that and he had given in, though reluctantly, for he would have liked his
sister and his brother-in-law from Jonesboro to be with him. And a
reception with toasts drunk to the bride in Miss Pitty’s parlor and happy
friends would have been a joy to him. But Scarlett would not hear of even
Miss Pitty being present.
“Just us two, Frank,” she begged, squeezing his arm. “Like an elopement.
I always did want to run away and be married! Please, sweetheart, just for
me!”
It was that endearing term, still so new to his ears, and the bright
teardrops which edged her pale green eyes as she looked up pleadingly at
him that won him over. After all, a man had to make some concessions to
his bride, especially about the wedding, for women set such a store by
sentimental things.
And before he knew it, he was married.
*     *     *
Frank gave her the three hundred dollars, bewildered by her sweet urgency,
reluctant at first, because it meant the end of his hope of buying the
sawmill immediately. But he could not see her family evicted, and his
disappointment soon faded at the sight of her radiant happiness,
disappeared entirely at the loving way she “took on” over his generosity.
Frank had never before had a woman “take on” over him and he came to
feel that the money had been well spent, after all.
Scarlett dispatched Mammy to Tara immediately for the triple purpose
of giving Will the money, announcing her marriage and bringing Wade to
Atlanta. In two days she had a brief note from Will which she carried
about with her and read and reread with mounting joy. Will wrote that the
taxes had been paid and Jonas Wilkerson “acted up pretty bad” at the news
but had made no other threats so far. Will closed by wishing her happiness,
a laconic formal statement which he qualified in no way. She knew Will

understood what she had done and why she had done it and neither
blamed nor praised. But what must Ashley think? she wondered feverishly.
What must he think of me now, after what I said to him so short a while
ago in the orchard at Tara?
She also had a letter from Suellen, poorly spelled, violent, abusive, tear
splotched, a letter so full of venom and truthful observations upon her
character that she was never to forget it nor forgive the writer. But even
Suellen’s words could not dim her happiness that Tara was safe, at least
from immediate danger.
It was hard to realize that Atlanta and not Tara was her permanent
home now. In her desperation to obtain the tax money, no thought save
Tara and the fate which threatened it had any place in her mind. Even at
the moment of marriage, she had not given a thought to the fact that the
price she was paying for the safety of home was permanent exile from it.
Now that the deed was done, she realized this with a wave of homesickness
hard to dispel. But there it was. She had made her bargain and she
intended to stand by it. And she was so grateful to Frank for saving Tara
she felt a warm affection for him and an equally warm determination that
he should never regret marrying her.
The ladies of Atlanta knew their neighbors’ business only slightly less
completely than they knew their own and were far more interested in it.
They all knew that for years Frank Kennedy had had an “understanding”
with Suellen O’Hara. In fact, he had said, sheepishly, that he expected to
get married in the spring. So the tumult of gossip, surmise and deep
suspicion which followed the announcement of his quiet wedding to
Scarlett was not surprising. Mrs. Merriwether, who never let her curiosity
go long unsatisfied if she could help it, asked him point-blank just what he
meant by marrying one sister when he was betrothed to the other. She
reported to Mrs. Elsing that all the answer she got for her pains was a silly
look. Not even Mrs. Merriwether, doughty soul that she was, dared to
approach Scarlett on the subject. Scarlett seemed demure and sweet
enough these days, but there was a pleased complacency in her eyes which
annoyed people and she carried a chip on her shoulder which no one cared
to disturb.
She knew Atlanta was talking but she did not care. After all, there
wasn’t anything immoral in marrying a man. Tara was safe. Let people talk.

She had too many other matters to occupy her mind. The most important
was how to make Frank realize, in a tactful manner, that his store should
bring in more money. After the fright Jonas Wilkerson had given her, she
would never rest easy until she and Frank had some money ahead. And
even if no emergency developed, Frank would need to make more money, if
she was going to save enough for next year’s taxes. Moreover, what Frank
had said about the sawmill stuck in her mind. Frank could make lots of
money out of a mill. Anybody could, with lumber selling at such
outrageous prices. She fretted silently because Frank’s money had not been
enough to pay the taxes on Tara and buy the mill as well. And she made up
her mind that he had to make more money on the store somehow, and do it
quickly, so he could buy that mill before someone else snapped it up. She
could see it was a bargain.
If she were a man she would have that mill, if she had to mortgage the
store to raise the money. But, when she intimated this delicately to Frank,
the day after they married, he smiled and told her not to bother her sweet
pretty little head about business matters. It had come as a surprise to him
that she even knew what a mortgage was and, at first, he was amused. But
this amusement quickly passed and a sense of shock took its place in the
early days of their marriage. Once, incautiously, he had told her that
“people” (he was careful not to mention names) owed him money but
could not pay just now and he was, of course, unwilling to press old friends
and gentlefolk. Frank regretted ever mentioning it for, thereafter, she had
questioned him about it again and again. She had the most charmingly
childlike air but she was just curious, she said, to know who owed him and
how much they owed. Frank was very evasive about the matter. He
coughed nervously and waved his hands and repeated his annoying remark
about her sweet pretty little head.
It had begun to dawn on him that this same pretty little head was a
“good head for figures.” In fact, a much better one than his own and the
knowledge was disquieting. He was thunderstruck to discover that she
could swiftly add a long column of figures in her head when he needed a
pencil and paper for more than three figures. And fractions presented no
difficulties to her at all. He felt there was something unbecoming about a
woman understanding fractions and business matters and he believed that,
should a woman be so unfortunate as to have such unladylike

comprehension, she should pretend not to. Now he disliked talking
business with her as much as he had enjoyed it before they were married.
Then he had thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been
pleasant to explain things to her. Now he saw that she understood entirely
too well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity of
women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in discovering
that a woman has a brain.
Just how early in his married life Frank learned of the deception Scarlett
had used in marrying him, no one ever knew. Perhaps the truth dawned on
him when Tony Fontaine, obviously fancy free, came to Atlanta on
business. Perhaps it was told him more directly in letters from his sister in
Jonesboro who was astounded at his marriage. Certainly he never learned
from Suellen herself. She never wrote him and naturally he could not write
her and explain. What good would explanations do anyway, now that he
was married? He writhed inwardly at the thought that Suellen would never
know the truth and would always think he had senselessly jilted her.
Probably everyone else was thinking this too and criticizing him. It
certainly put him in an awkward position. And he had no way of clearing
himself, for a man couldn’t go about saying he had lost his head about a
woman—and a gentleman couldn’t advertise the fact that his wife had
entrapped him with a lie.
Scarlett was his wife and a wife was entitled to the loyalty of her
husband. Furthermore, he could not bring himself to believe she had
married him coldly and with no affection for him at all. His masculine
vanity would not permit such a thought to stay long in his mind. It was
more pleasant to think she had fallen so suddenly in love with him she had
been willing to lie to get him. But it was all very puzzling. He knew he was
no great catch for a woman half his age and pretty and smart to boot, but
Frank was a gentleman and he kept his bewilderment to himself. Scarlett
was his wife and he could not insult her by asking awkward questions
which, after all, would not remedy matters.
Not that Frank especially wanted to remedy matters, for it appeared that
his marriage would be a happy one. Scarlett was the most charming and
exciting of women and he thought her perfect in all things—except that
she was so headstrong. Frank learned early in his marriage that so long as
she had her own way, life could be very pleasant, but when she was opposed

— Given her own way, she was as gay as a child, laughed a good deal, made
foolish little jokes, sat on his knee and tweaked his beard until he vowed he
felt twenty years younger. She could be unexpectedly sweet and thoughtful,
having his slippers toasting at the fire when he came home at night, fussing
affectionately about his wet feet and interminable head colds, remembering
that he always liked the gizzard of the chicken and three spoonfuls of sugar
in his coffee. Yes, life was very sweet and cozy with Scarlett—as long as she
had her own way.
*     *     *
When the marriage was two weeks old, Frank contracted the grippe and Dr.
Meade put him to bed. In the first year of the war, Frank had spent two
months in the hospital with pneumonia and he had lived in dread of
another attack since that time, so he was only too glad to lie sweating
under three blankets and drink the hot concoctions Mammy and Aunt
Pitty brought him every hour.
The illness dragged on and Frank worried more and more about the
store as each day passed. The place was in charge of the counter boy, who
came to the house every night to report on the day’s transactions, but
Frank was not satisfied. He fretted until Scarlett who had only been waiting
for such an opportunity laid a cool hand on his forehead and said: “Now,
sweetheart, I shall be vexed if you take on so. I’ll go to town and see how
things are.”
And she went, smiling as she smothered his feeble protests. During the
three weeks of her new marriage, she had been in a fever to see his account
books and find out just how money matters stood. What luck that he was
bedridden!
The store stood near Five Points, its new roof glaring against the smoked
bricks of the old walls. Wooden awnings covered the sidewalk to the edge
of the street, and at the long iron bars connecting the uprights horses and
mules were hitched, their heads bowed against the cold misty rain, their
backs covered with torn blankets and quilts. The inside of the store was
almost like Bullard’s store in Jonesboro, except that there were no loungers
about the roaring red-hot stove, whittling and spitting streams of tobacco

juice at the sand boxes. It was bigger than Bullard’s store and much darker.
The wooden awnings cut off most of the winter daylight and the interior
was dim and dingy, only a trickle of light coming in through the small fly-
specked windows high up on the side walls. The floor was covered with
muddy sawdust and everywhere was dust and dirt. There was a semblance
of order in the front of the store, where tall shelves rose into the gloom
stacked with bright bolts of cloth, china, cooking utensils and notions. But
in the back, behind the partition, chaos reigned.
Here there was no flooring and the assorted jumble of stock was piled
helter-skelter on the hard-packed earth. In the semidarkness she saw boxes
and bales of goods, plows and harnesses and saddles and cheap pine coffins.
Secondhand furniture, ranging from cheap gum to mahogany and
rosewood, reared up in the gloom, and the rich but worn brocade and
horsehair upholstery gleamed incongruously in the dingy surroundings.
China chambers and bowl and pitcher sets littered the floor and all around
the four walls were deep bins, so dark she had to hold the lamp directly
over them to discover they contained seeds, nails, bolts and carpenters’
tools.
“I’d think a man as fussy and old maidish as Frank would keep things
tidier,” she thought, scrubbing her grimy hands with her handkerchief.
“This place is a pig pen. What a way to run a store! If he’d only dust up this
stuff and put it out in front where folks could see it, he could sell things
much quicker.”
And if his stock was in such condition, what mustn’t his accounts be!
I’ll look at his account book now, she thought and, picking up the lamp,
she went into the front of the store. Willie, the counter boy, was reluctant
to give her the large dirty-backed ledger. It was obvious that, young as he
was, he shared Frank’s opinion that women had no place in business. But
Scarlett silenced him with a sharp word and sent him out to get his dinner.
She felt better when he was gone, for his disapproval annoyed her, and she
settled herself in a split-bottomed chair by the roaring stove, tucked one
foot under her and spread the book across her lap. It was dinner time and
the streets were deserted. No customers called and she had the store to
herself.
She turned the pages slowly, narrowly scanning the rows of names and
figures written in Frank’s cramped copperplate hand. It was just as she had

expected, and she frowned as she saw this newest evidence of Frank’s
business sense. At least five hundred dollars in debts, some of them months
old, were set down against the names of people she knew well, the
Merriwethers and the Elsings among other familiar names. From Frank’s
deprecatory remarks about the money “people” owed him, she had
imagined the sums to be small. But this!
“If they can’t pay, why do they keep on buying?” she thought irritably.
“And if he knows they can’t pay, why does he keep on selling them stuff?
Lots of them could pay if he’d just make them do it. The Elsings certainly
could if they could give Fanny a new satin dress and an expensive wedding.
Frank’s just too soft hearted, and people take advantage of him. Why, if
he’d collected half this money, he could have bought the sawmill and easily
spared me the tax money, too.”
Then she thought: “Just imagine Frank trying to operate a sawmill!
God’s nightgown! If he runs this store like a charitable institution, how
could he expect to make money on a mill? The sheriff would have it in a
month. Why, I could run this store better than he does! And I could run a
mill better than he could, even if I don’t know anything about the lumber
business!”
A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business matters as
well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to Scarlett who had
been reared in the tradition that men were omniscient and women none
too bright. Of course, she had discovered that this was not altogether true
but the pleasant fiction still stuck in her mind. Never before had she put
this remarkable idea into words. She sat quite still, with the heavy book
across her lap, her mouth a little open with surprise, thinking that during
the lean months at Tara she had done a man’s work and done it well. She
had been brought up to believe that a woman alone could accomplish
nothing, yet she had managed the plantation without men to help her until
Will came. Why, why, her mind stuttered, I believe women could manage
everything in the world without men’s help—except having babies, and
God knows, no woman in her right mind would have babies if she could
help it.
With the idea that she was as capable as a man came a sudden rush of
pride and a violent longing to prove it, to make money for herself as men

made money. Money which would be her own, which she would neither
have to ask for nor account for to any man.
“I wish I had money enough to buy that mill myself,” she said aloud and
sighed. “I’d sure make it hum. And I wouldn’t let even one splinter go out
on credit.”
She sighed again. There was nowhere she could get any money, so the
idea was out of the question. Frank would simply have to collect this
money owing him and buy the mill. It was a sure way to make money, and
when he got the mill, she would certainly find some way to make him be
more businesslike in its operation than he had been with the store.
She pulled a back page out of the ledger and began copying the list of
debtors who had made no payments in several months. She’d take the
matter up with Frank just as soon as she reached home. She’d make him
realize that these people had to pay their bills even if they were old friends,
even if it did embarrass him to press them for money. That would probably
upset Frank, for he was timid and fond of the approbation of his friends. He
was so thin skinned he’d rather lose the money than be businesslike about
collecting it.
And he’d probably tell her that no one had any money with which to
pay him. Well, perhaps that was true. Poverty was certainly no news to her.
But nearly everybody had saved some silver or jewelry or was hanging onto
a little real estate. Frank could take them in lieu of cash.
She could imagine how Frank would moan when she broached such an
idea to him. Take the jewelry and property of his friends! Well, she
shrugged, he can moan all he likes. I’m going to tell him that he may be
willing to stay poor for friendship’s sake but I’m not. Frank will never get
anywhere if he doesn’t get up some gumption. And he’s got to get
somewhere! He’s got to make money, even if I’ve got to wear the pants in
the family to make him do it.
She was writing busily, her face screwed up with the effort, her tongue
clamped between her teeth, when the front door opened and a great draft
of cold wind swept the store. A tall man came into the dingy room walking
with a light Indian-like tread, and looking up she saw Rhett Butler.
He was resplendent in new clothes and a greatcoat with a dashing cape
thrown back from his heavy shoulders. His tall hat was off in a deep bow
when her eyes met his and his hand went to the bosom of a spotless pleated

shirt. His white teeth gleamed startlingly against his brown face and his
bold eyes raked her.
“My dear Mrs. Kennedy,” he said, walking toward her. “My very dear
Mrs. Kennedy!” and he broke into a loud merry laugh.
At first she was as startled as if a ghost had invaded the store and then,
hastily removing her foot from beneath her, she stiffened her spine and
gave him a cold stare.
“What are you doing here?”
“I called on Miss Pittypat and learned of your marriage and so I hastened
here to congratulate you.”
The memory of her humiliation at his hands made her go crimson with
shame.
“I don’t see how you have the gall to face me!” she cried.
“On the contrary! How have you the gall to face me?”
“Oh, you are the most—”
“Shall we let the bugles sing truce?” He smiled down at her, a wide
flashing smile that had impudence in it but no shame for his own actions or
condemnation for hers. In spite of herself, she had to smile too, but it was a
wry, uncomfortable smile.
“What a pity they didn’t hang you!”
“Others share your feeling, I fear. Come, Scarlett, relax. You look like
you’d swallowed a ramrod and it isn’t becoming. Surely, you’ve had time to
recover from my—er—my little joke.”
“Joke? Ha! I’ll never get over it!”
“Oh, yes, you will. You are just putting on this indignant front because
you think it’s proper and respectable. May I sit down?”
“No.”
He sank into a chair beside her and grinned.
“I hear you couldn’t even wait two weeks for me,” he said and gave a
mock sigh. “How fickle is woman!”
When she did not reply he continued.
“Tell me, Scarlett, just between friends—between very old and very
intimate friends—wouldn’t it have been wiser to wait until I got out of jail?
Or are the charms of wedlock with old Frank Kennedy more alluring than
illicit relations with me?”

As always when his mockery aroused wrath within her, wrath fought
with laughter at his impudence.
“Don’t be absurd.”
“And would you mind satisfying my curiosity on one point which has
bothered me for some time? Did you have no womanly repugnance, no
delicate shrinking from marrying not just one man but two for whom you
had no love or even affection? Or have I been misinformed about the
delicacy of our Southern womanhood?”
“Rhett!”
“I have my answer. I always felt that women had a hardness and
endurance unknown to men, despite the pretty idea taught me in
childhood that women are frail, tender, sensitive creatures. But after all,
according to the Continental code of etiquette, it’s very bad form for
husband and wife to love each other. Very bad taste, indeed. I always felt
that the European had the right idea in that matter. Marry for convenience
and love for pleasure. A sensible system, don’t you think? You are closer to
the old country than I thought.”
How pleasant it would be to shout at him: “I did not marry for
convenience!” But unfortunately, Rhett had her there and any protest of
injured innocence would only bring more barbed remarks from him.
“How you do run on,” she said coolly. Anxious to change the subject,
she asked: “How did you ever get out of jail?”
“Oh, that!” he answered, making an airy gesture. “Not much trouble.
They let me out this morning. I employed a delicate system of blackmail on
a friend in Washington who is quite high in the councils of the Federal
government. A splendid fellow—one of the staunch Union patriots from
whom I used to buy muskets and hoop skirts for the Confederacy. When my
distressing predicament was brought to his attention in the right way, he
hastened to use his influence, and so I was released. Influence is everything,
Scarlett. Remember that when you get arrested. Influence is everything,
and guilt or innocence merely an academic question.”
“I’ll take oath you weren’t innocent.”
“No, now that I am free of the toils, I’ll frankly admit that I’m as guilty
as Cain. I did kill the nigger. He was uppity to a lady, and what else could a
Southern gentleman do? And while I’m confessing, I must admit that I shot
a Yankee cavalryman after some words in a barroom. I was not charged

with that peccadillo, so perhaps some other poor devil has been hanged for
it, long since.”
He was so blithe about his murders her blood chilled. Words of moral
indignation rose to her lips but suddenly she remembered the Yankee who
lay under the tangle of scuppernong vines at Tara. He had not been on her
conscience any more than a roach upon which she might have stepped.
She could not sit in judgment on Rhett when she was as guilty as he.
“And, as I seem to be making a clean breast of it, I must tell you, in
strictest confidence (that means, don’t tell Miss Pittypat!) that I did have
the money, safe in a bank in Liverpool.”
“The money?”
“Yes, the money the Yankees were so curious about. Scarlett, it wasn’t
altogether meanness that kept me from giving you the money you wanted.
If I’d drawn a draft they could have traced it somehow and I doubt if you’d
have gotten a cent. My only hope lay in doing nothing. I knew the money
was pretty safe, for if worst came to worst, if they had located it and tried to
take it away from me, I would have named every Yankee patriot who sold
me bullets and machinery during the war. Then there would have been a
stink, for some of them are high up in Washington now. In fact, it was my
threat to unbosom my conscience about them that got me out of jail. I—”
“Do you mean you—you actually have the Confederate gold?”
“Not all of it. Good Heavens, no! There must be fifty or more ex-
blockaders who have plenty salted away in Nassau and England and
Canada. We will be pretty unpopular with the Confederates who weren’t as
slick as we were. I have got close to half a million. Just think, Scarlett, a
half-million dollars, if you’d only restrained your fiery nature and not
rushed into wedlock again!”
A half-million dollars. She felt a pang of almost physical sickness at the
thought of so much money. It was hard to believe there was so much
money in all this bitter and poverty-stricken world. So much money, so
very much money, and someone else had it, someone who took it lightly
and didn’t need it. And she had only a sick elderly husband and this dirty,
piddling, little store between her and a hostile world. It wasn’t fair that a
reprobate like Rhett Butler should have so much and she, who carried so
heavy a load, should have so little. She hated him, sitting there in his
dandified attire, taunting her. Well, she wouldn’t swell his conceit by

complimenting him on his cleverness. She longed viciously for sharp words
with which to cut him.
“I suppose you think it’s honest to keep the Confederate money. Well, it
isn’t. It’s plain out and out stealing and you know it. I wouldn’t have that
on my conscience.”
“My! How sour the grapes are today!” he exclaimed, screwing up his
face. “And just whom am I stealing from?”
She was silent, trying to think just whom indeed. After all, he had only
done what Frank had done on a small scale.
“Half the money is honestly mine,” he continued, “honestly made with
the aid of honest Union patriots who were willing to sell out the Union
behind its back—for one-hundred-per-cent profit on their goods. Part I
made out of my little investment in cotton at the beginning of the war, the
cotton I bought cheap and sold for a dollar a pound when the British mills
were crying for it. Part I got from food speculation. Why should I let the
Yankees have the fruits of my labor? But the rest did belong to the
Confederacy. It came from Confederate cotton which I managed to run
through the blockade and sell in Liverpool at sky-high prices. The cotton
was given me in good faith to buy leather and rifles and machinery with.
And it was taken by me in good faith to buy the same. My orders were to
leave the gold in English banks, under my own name, in order that my
credit would be good. You remember when the blockade tightened, I
couldn’t get a boat out of any Confederate port or into one, so there the
money stayed in England. What should I have done? Drawn out all that
gold from English banks, like a simpleton, and tried to run it into
Wilmington? And let the Yankees capture it? Was it my fault that the
blockade got too tight? Was it my fault that our Cause failed? The money
belonged to the Confederacy. Well, there is no Confederacy now—though
you’d never know it, to hear some people talk. Whom shall I give the
money to? The Yankee government? I should so hate for people to think
me a thief.”
He removed a leather case from his pocket, extracted a long cigar and
smelled it approvingly, meanwhile watching her with pseudo anxiety as if
he hung on her words.
Plague take him, she thought, he’s always one jump ahead of me. There
is always something wrong with his arguments but I never can put my

finger on just what it is.
“You might,” she said with dignity, “distribute it to those who are in
need. The Confederacy is gone but there are plenty of Confederates and
their families who are starving.”
He threw back his head and laughed rudely.
“You are never so charming or so absurd as when you are airing some
hypocrisy like that,” he cried in frank enjoyment. “Always tell the truth,
Scarlett. You can’t lie. The Irish are the poorest liars in the world. Come
now, be frank. You never gave a damn about the late lamented
Confederacy and you care less about the starving Confederates. You’d
scream in protest if I even suggested giving away all that money unless I
started off by giving you the lion’s share.”
“I don’t want your money,” she began, trying to be coldly dignified.
“Oh, don’t you! Your palm is itching to beat the band this minute. If I
showed you a quarter, you’d leap on it.”
“If you have come here to insult me and laugh at my poverty, I will wish
you good day,” she retorted, trying to rid her lap of the heavy ledger so she
might rise and make her words more impressive. Instantly, he was on his
feet bending over her, laughing as he pushed her back into her chair.
“When will you ever get over losing your temper when you hear the
truth? You never mind speaking the truth about other people, so why
should you mind hearing it about yourself? I’m not insulting you. I think
acquisitiveness is a very fine quality.”
She was not sure what acquisitiveness meant but as he praised it she felt
slightly mollified.
“I didn’t come to gloat over your poverty but to wish you long life and
happiness in your marriage. By the way, what did sister Sue think of your
larceny?”
“My what?”
“Your stealing Frank from under her nose.”
“I did not—”
“Well, we won’t quibble about the word. What did she say?”
“She said nothing,” said Scarlett. His eyes danced as they gave her the
lie.
“How unselfish of her. Now, let’s hear about your poverty. Surely I have
the right to know, after your little trip out to the jail not long ago. Hasn’t

Frank as much money as you hoped?”
There was no evading his impudence. Either she would have to put up
with it or ask him to leave. And now she did not want him to leave. His
words were barbed but they were the barbs of truth. He knew what she had
done and why she had done it and he did not seem to think the less of her
for it. And though his questions were unpleasantly blunt, they seemed
actuated by a friendly interest. He was one person to whom she could tell
the truth. That would be a relief, for it had been so long since she had told
anyone the truth about herself and her motives. Whenever she spoke her
mind everyone seemed to be shocked. Talking to Rhett was comparable
only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a pair of old
slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.
“Didn’t you get the money for the taxes? Don’t tell me the wolf is still at
the door of Tara.” There was a different tone in his voice.
She looked up to meet his dark eyes and caught an expression which
startled and puzzled her at first, and then made her suddenly smile, a sweet
and charming smile which was seldom on her face these days. What a
perverse wretch he was, but how nice he could be at times! She knew now
that the real reason for his call was not to tease her but to make sure she
had gotten the money for which she had been so desperate. She knew now
that he had hurried to her as soon as he was released, without the slightest
appearance of hurry, to lend her the money if she still needed it. And yet
he would torment and insult her and deny that such was his intent, should
she accuse him. He was quite beyond all comprehension. Did he really care
about her, more than he was willing to admit? Or did he have some other
motive? Probably the latter, she thought. But who could tell? He did such
strange things sometimes.
“No,” she said, “the wolf isn’t at the door any longer. I—I got the
money.”
“But not without a struggle, I’ll warrant. Did you manage to restrain
yourself until you got the wedding ring on your finger?”
She tried not to smile at his accurate summing up of her conduct but she
could not help dimpling. He seated himself again, sprawling his long legs
comfortably.
“Well, tell me about your poverty. Did Frank, the brute, mislead you
about his prospects? He should be soundly thrashed for taking advantage of

a helpless female. Come, Scarlett, tell me everything. You should have no
secrets from me. Surely, I know the worst about you.”
“Oh, Rhett, you’re the worst—well, I don’t know what! No, he didn’t
exactly fool me but—” Suddenly it became a pleasure to unburden herself.
“Rhett, if Frank would just collect the money people owe him, I wouldn’t
be worried about anything. But, Rhett, fifty people owe him and he won’t
press them. He’s so thin skinned. He says a gentleman can’t do that to
another gentleman. And it may be months and may be never before we get
the money.”
“Well, what of it? Haven’t you enough to eat on until he does collect?”
“Yes, but—well, as a matter of fact, I could use a little money right now.”
Her eyes brightened as she thought of the mill. Perhaps—
“What for? More taxes?”
“Is that any of your business?”
“Yes, because you are getting ready to touch me for a loan. Oh, I know
all the approaches. And I’ll lend it to you—without, my dear Mrs.
Kennedy, that charming collateral you offered me a short while ago.
Unless, of course, you insist.”
“You are the coarsest—”
“Not at all. I merely wanted to set your mind at ease. I knew you’d be
worried about that point. Not much worried but a little. And I’m willing to
lend you the money. But I do want to know how you are going to spend it. I
have that right, I believe. If it’s to buy you pretty frocks or a carriage, take it
with my blessing. But if it’s to buy a new pair of breeches for Ashley
Wilkes, I fear I must decline to lend it.”
She was hot with sudden rage and she stuttered until words came.
“Ashley Wilkes has never taken a cent from me! I couldn’t make him
take a cent if he were starving! You don’t understand him, how honorable,
how proud he is! Of course, you can’t understand him, being what you are
—”
“Don’t let’s begin calling names. I could call you a few that would match
any you could think of for me. You forget that I have been keeping up with
you through Miss Pittypat, and the dear soul tells all she knows to any
sympathetic listener. I know that Ashley has been at Tara ever since he
came home from Rock Island. I know that you have even put up with
having his wife around, which must have been a strain on you.”

“Ashley is—”
“Oh, yes,” he said, waving his hand negligently. “Ashley is too sublime
for my earthy comprehension. But please don’t forget I was an interested
witness to your tender scene with him at Twelve Oaks and something tells
me he hasn’t changed since then. And neither have you. He didn’t cut so
sublime a figure that day, if I remember rightly. And I don’t think the figure
he cuts now is much better. Why doesn’t he take his family and get out and
find work? And stop living at Tara? Of course, it’s just a whim of mine, but I
don’t intend to lend you a cent for Tara to help support him. Among men,
there’s a very unpleasant name for men who permit women to support
them.”
“How dare you say such things? He’s been working like a field hand!”
For all her rage, her heart was wrung by the memory of Ashley splitting
fence rails.
“And worth his weight in gold, I dare say. What a hand he must be with
the manure and—”
“He’s—”
“Oh, yes, I know. Let’s grant that he does the best he can but I don’t
imagine he’s much help. You’ll never make a farm hand out of a Wilkes—
or anything else that’s useful. The breed is purely ornamental. Now, quiet
your ruffling feathers and overlook my boorish remarks about the proud and
honorable Ashley. Strange how these illusions will persist even in women
as hard headed as you are. How much money do you want and what do you
want it for?”
When she did not answer he repeated:
“What do you want it for? And see if you can manage to tell me the
truth. It will do as well as a lie. In fact, better, for if you lie to me, I’ll be
sure to find it out, and think how embarrassing that would be. Always
remember this, Scarlett, I can stand anything from you but a lie—your
dislike for me, your tempers, all your vixenish ways, but not a lie. Now
what do you want it for?”
Raging as she was at his attack on Ashley, she would have given
anything to spit on him and throw his offer of money proudly into his
mocking face. For a moment she almost did, but the cold hand of common
sense held her back. She swallowed her anger with poor grace and tried to

assume an expression of pleasant dignity. He leaned back in his chair,
stretching his legs toward the stove.
“If there’s one thing in the world that gives me more amusement than
anything else,” he remarked, “it’s the sight of your mental struggles when a
matter of principle is laid up against something practical like money. Of
course, I know the practical in you will always win, but I keep hanging
around to see if your better nature won’t triumph some day. And when that
day comes I shall pack my bag and leave Atlanta forever. There are too
many women whose better natures are always triumphing…. Well, let’s get
back to business. How much and what for?”
“I don’t know quite how much I’ll need,” she said sulkily. “But I want to
buy a sawmill—and I think I can get it cheap. And I’ll need two wagons
and two mules. I want good mules, too. And a horse and buggy for my own
use.”
“A sawmill?”
“Yes, and if you’ll lend me the money, I’ll give you a half-interest in it.”
“Whatever would I do with a sawmill?”
“Make money! We can make loads of money. Or I’ll pay you interest on
the loan—let’s see, what is good interest?”
“Fifty per cent is considered very fine.”
“Fifty—oh, but you are joking! Stop laughing, you devil. I’m serious.”
“That’s why I’m laughing. I wonder if anyone but me realizes what goes
on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face.”
“Well, who cares? Listen, Rhett, and see if this doesn’t sound like a good
business to you. Frank told me about this man who has a sawmill, a little
one out Peachtree road, and he wants to sell it. He’s got to have cash
money pretty quick and he’ll sell it cheap. There aren’t many sawmills
around here now, and the way people are rebuilding—why, we could sell
lumber sky high. The man will stay and run the mill for a wage. Frank told
me about it. Frank would buy the mill himself if he had the money. I guess
he was intending buying it with the money he gave me for the taxes.”
“Poor Frank! What is he going to say when you tell him you’ve bought it
yourself right out from under him? And how are you going to explain my
lending you the money without compromising your reputation?”
Scarlett had given no thought to this, so intent was she upon the money
the mill would bring in.

“Well, I just won’t tell him.”
“He’ll know you didn’t pick it off a bush.”
“I’ll tell him—why, yes, I’ll tell him I sold you my diamond earbobs.
And I will give them to you, too. That’ll be my collat—my whatchucallit.”
“I wouldn’t take your earbobs.”
“I don’t want them. I don’t like them. They aren’t really mine, anyway.”
“Whose are they?”
Her mind went swiftly back to the still hot noon with the country hush
deep about Tara and the dead man in blue sprawled in the hall.
“They were left with me—by someone who’s dead. They’re mine all
right. Take them. I don’t want them. I’d rather have the money for them.”
“Good Lord!” he cried impatiently. “Don’t you ever think of anything
but money?”
“No,” she replied frankly, turning hard green eyes upon him. “And if
you’d been through what I have, you wouldn’t either. I’ve found out that
money is the most important thing in the world and, as God is my witness,
I don’t ever intend to be without it again.”
She remembered the hot sun, the soft red earth under her sick head, the
niggery smell of the cabin behind the ruins of Twelve Oaks, remembered
the refrain her heart had beaten: “I’ll never be hungry again. I’ll never be
hungry again.”
“I’m going to have money some day, lots of it, so I can have anything I
want to eat. And then there’ll never be any hominy or dried peas on my
table. And I’m going to have pretty clothes and all of them are going to be
silk—”
“All?”
“All,” she said shortly, not even troubling to blush at his implication.
“I’m going to have money enough so the Yankees can never take Tara away
from me. And I’m going to have a new roof for Tara and a new barn and
fine mules for plowing and more cotton than you ever saw. And Wade isn’t
ever going to know what it means to do without the things he needs.
Never! He’s going to have everything in the world. And all my family, they
aren’t ever going to be hungry again. I mean it. Every word. You don’t
understand, you’re such a selfish hound. You’ve never had the
Carpetbaggers trying to drive you out. You’ve never been cold and ragged
and had to break your back to keep from starving!”

He said quietly: “I was in the Confederate Army for eight months. I
don’t know any better place for starving.”
“The army! Bah! You’ve never had to pick cotton and weed corn.
You’ve— Don’t laugh at me!”
His hands were on hers again as her voice rose harshly.
“I wasn’t laughing at you. I was laughing at the difference in what you
look and what you really are. And I was remembering the first time I ever
saw you, at the barbecue at the Wilkes’. You had on a green dress and little
green slippers, and you were knee deep in men and quite full of yourself. I’ll
wager you didn’t know then how many pennies were in a dollar. There was
only one idea in your whole mind then and that was ensnaring Ash—”
She jerked her hands away from him.
“Rhett, if we are to get on at all, you’ll have to stop talking about
Ashley Wilkes. We’ll always fall out about him, because you can’t
understand him.”
“I suppose you understand him like a book,” said Rhett maliciously. “No,
Scarlett, if I am to lend you the money I reserve the right to discuss Ashley
Wilkes in any terms I care to. I waive the right to collect interest on my
loan but not that right. And there are a number of things about that young
man I’d like to know.”
“I do not have to discuss him with you,” she answered shortly.
“Oh, but you do! I hold the purse strings, you see. Some day when you
are rich, you can have the power to do the same to others…. It’s obvious
that you still care about him—”
“I do not.”
“Oh, it’s so obvious from the way you rush to his defense. You—”
“I won’t stand having my friends sneered at.”
“Well, we’ll let that pass for the moment. Does he still care for you or
did Rock Island make him forget? Or perhaps he’s learned to appreciate
what a jewel of a wife he has?”
At the mention of Melanie, Scarlett began to breathe hard and could
scarcely restrain herself from crying out the whole story, that only honor
kept Ashley with Melanie. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed
it.
“Oh. So he still hasn’t enough sense to appreciate Mrs. Wilkes? And the
rigors of prison didn’t dim his ardor for you?”

“I see no need to discuss the subject.”
“I wish to discuss it,” said Rhett. There was a low note in his voice
which Scarlett did not understand but did not like to hear. “And, by God, I
will discuss it and I expect you to answer me. So he’s still in love with you?”
“Well, what if he is?” cried Scarlett, goaded. “I don’t care to discuss him
with you because you can’t understand him or his kind of love. The only
kind of love you know about is just—well, the kind you carry on with
creatures like that Watling woman.”
“Oh,” said Rhett softly. “So I am only capable of carnal lusts?”
“Well, you know it’s true.”
“Now I appreciate your hesitance in discussing this matter with me. My
unclean hands and lips besmirch the purity of his love.”
“Well, yes—something like that.”
“I’m interested in this pure love—”
“Don’t be nasty, Rhett Butler. If you are vile enough to think there’s
ever been anything wrong between us—”
“Oh, the thought never entered my head, really. That’s why it all
interests me. Just why hasn’t there been anything wrong between you?”
“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 idyl—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 has 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—”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” he said impatiently. “Don’t let’s have any more of
that. He’s no help. He’s on your hands and he’ll be on them, or on
somebody’s, till he dies. Personally, I’m sick of him as a topic of
conversation…. How much money do you want?”
Vituperative words rushed to her lips. After all his insults, after dragging
from her those things which were most precious to her and trampling on
them, he still thought she would take his money!
But the words were checked unspoken. How wonderful it would be to
scorn his offer and order him out of the store! But only the truly rich and
the truly secure could afford this luxury. So long as she was poor, just so
long would she have to endure such scenes as this. But when she was rich
—oh, what a beautiful warming thought that was!—when she was rich, she
wouldn’t stand anything she didn’t like, do without anything she desired or
even be polite to people unless they pleased her.
I shall tell them all to go to Halifax, she thought, and Rhett Butler will
be the first one!
The pleasure in the thought brought a sparkle into her green eyes and a
half-smile to her lips. Rhett smiled too.
“You’re a pretty person, Scarlett,” he said. “Especially when you are
meditating devilment. And just for the sight of that dimple I’ll buy you a
baker’s dozen of mules if you want them.”
The front door opened and the counter boy entered, picking his teeth
with a quill. Scarlett rose, pulled her shawl about her and tied her bonnet
strings firmly under her chin. Her mind was made up.
“Are you busy this afternoon? Can you come with me now?” she asked.
“Where?”
“I want you to drive to the mill with me. I promised Frank I wouldn’t
drive out of town by myself.”

“To the mill in this rain?”
“Yes, I want to buy that mill now, before you change your mind.”
He laughed so loudly the boy behind the counter started and looked at
him curiously.
“Have you forgotten you are married? Mrs. Kennedy can’t afford to be
seen driving out into the country with that Butler reprobate, who isn’t
received in the best parlors. Have you forgotten your reputation?”
“Reputation, fiddle-dee-dee! I want that mill before you change your
mind or Frank finds out that I’m buying it. Don’t be a slow poke, Rhett.
What’s a little rain? Let’s hurry.”
*     *     *
That sawmill! Frank groaned every time he thought of it, cursing himself
for ever mentioning it to her. It was bad enough for her to sell her earrings
to Captain Butler (of all people!) and buy the mill without even consulting
her own husband about it, but it was worse still that she did not turn it over
to him to operate. That looked bad. As if she did not trust him or his
judgment.
Frank, in common with all men he knew, felt that a wife should be
guided by her husband’s superior knowledge, should accept his opinions in
full and have none of her own. He would have given most women their
own way. Women were such funny little creatures and it never hurt to
humor their small whims. Mild and gentle by nature, it was not in him to
deny a wife much. He would have enjoyed gratifying the foolish notions of
some soft little person and scolding her lovingly for her stupidity and
extravagance. But the things Scarlett set her mind on were unthinkable.
That sawmill, for example. It was the shock of his life when she told him
with a sweet smile, in answer to his questions, that she intended to run it
herself. “Go into the lumber business myself,” was the way she put it. Frank
would never forget the horror of that moment. Go into business for herself!
It was unthinkable. There were no women in business in Atlanta. In fact,
Frank had never heard of a woman in business anywhere. If women were so
unfortunate as to be compelled to make a little money to assist their
families in these hard times, they made it in quiet womanly ways—baking

as Mrs. Merriwether was doing, or painting china and sewing and keeping
boarders, like Mrs. Elsing and Fanny, or teaching school like Mrs. Meade or
giving music lessons like Mrs. Bonnell. These ladies made money but they
kept themselves at home while they did it, as a woman should. But for a
woman to leave the protection of her home and venture out into the rough
world of men, competing with them in business, rubbing shoulders with
them, being exposed to insult and gossip…. Especially when she wasn’t
forced to do it, when she had a husband amply able to provide for her!
Frank had hoped she was only teasing or playing a joke on him, a joke of
questionable taste, but he soon found she meant what she said. She did
operate