It? They were beyond her comprehension and vaguely irritating.

She couldn't be like them. She couldn't survey the wreck of the

world with an air of casual unconcern. She was as hunted as a fox,

running with a bursting heart, trying to reach a burrow before the

hounds caught up.

Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her,

because they carried their losses with an air that she could never

attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling,

light-footed strangers, these proud fools who took pride in

something they had lost, seeming to be proud that they had lost it.

The women bore themselves like ladies and she knew they were

ladies, though menial tasks were their daily lot and they didn't

know where their next dress was coming from. Ladies all! But she

could not feel herself a lady, for all her velvet dress and scented

hair, for all the pride of birth that stood behind her and the

pride of wealth that had once been hers. Harsh contact with the

red earth of Tara had stripped gentility from her and she knew she

would never feel like a lady again until her table was weighted

with silver and crystal and smoking with rich food, until her own

horses and carriages stood in her stables, until black hands and

not white took the cotton from Tara.

"Ah!" she thought angrily, sucking in her breath. "That's the

difference! Even though they're poor, they still feel like ladies

and I don't. The silly fools don't seem to realize that you can't

be a lady without money!"

Even in this flash of revelation, she realized vaguely that,

foolish though they seemed, theirs was the right attitude. Ellen

would have thought so. This disturbed her. She knew she should

feel as these people felt, but she could not. She knew she should

believe devoutly, as they did, that a born lady remained a lady,

even if reduced to poverty, but she could not make herself believe

it now.

All her life she had heard sneers hurled at the Yankees because

their pretensions to gentility were based on wealth, not breeding.

But at this moment, heresy though it was, she could not help

thinking the Yankees were right on this one matter, even if wrong

in all others. It took money to be a lady. She knew Ellen would

have fainted had she ever heard such words from her daughter. No

depth of poverty could ever have made Ellen feel ashamed. Ashamed!

Yes, that was how Scarlett felt. Ashamed that she was poor and

reduced to galling shifts and penury and work that negroes should

do.

She shrugged in irritation. Perhaps these people were right and

she was wrong but, just the same, these proud fools weren't looking

forward as she was doing, straining every nerve, risking even honor

and good name to get back what they had lost. It was beneath the

dignity of any of them to indulge in a scramble for money. The

times were rude and hard. They called for rude and hard struggle

If one was to conquer them. Scarlett knew that family tradition

would forcibly restrain many of these people from such a struggle--

with the making of money admittedly its aim. They all thought that

obvious money-making and even talk of money were vulgar in the

extreme. Of course, there were exceptions. Mrs. Merriwether and

her baking and Rene driving the pie wagon. And Hugh Elsing cutting

and peddling firewood and Tommy contracting. And Frank having the

gumption to start a store. But what of the rank and file of them?

The planters would scratch a few acres and live in poverty. The

lawyers and doctors would go back to their professions and wait for

clients who might never come. And the rest, those who had lived in

leisure on their incomes? What would happen to them?

But she wasn't going to be poor all her life. She wasn't going to

sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She was

going to rush into life and wrest from it what she could. Her

father had started as a poor immigrant boy and had won the broad

acres of Tara. What he had done, his daughter could do. She

wasn't like these people who had gambled everything on a Cause that

was gone and were content to be proud of having lost that Cause,

because it was worth any sacrifice. They drew their courage from

the past. She was drawing hers from the future. Frank Kennedy, at

present, was her future. At least, he had the store and he had

cash money. And if she could only marry him and get her hands on

that money, she could make ends meet at Tara for another year. And

after that--Frank must buy the sawmill. She could see for herself

how quickly the town was rebuilding and anyone who could establish

a lumber business now, when there was so little competition, would

have a gold mine.

There came to her, from the recesses of her mind, words Rhett had

spoken in the early years of the war about the money he made in the

blockade. She had not taken the trouble to understand them then,

but now they seemed perfectly clear and she wondered if it had been

only her youth or plain stupidity which had kept her from

appreciating them.

"There's just as much money to be made in the wreck of a

civilization as in the upbuilding of one."

"This is the wreck he foresaw," she thought, "and he was right.

There's still plenty of money to be made by anyone who isn't afraid

to work--or to grab."

She saw Frank coming across the floor toward her with a glass of

blackberry wine in his hand and a morsel of cake on a saucer and

she pulled her face into a smile. It did not occur to her to

question whether Tara was worth marrying Frank. She knew it was

worth it and she never gave the matter a second thought.

She smiled up at him as she sipped the wine, knowing that her

cheeks were more attractively pink than any of the dancers'. She

moved her skirts for him to sit by her and waved her handkerchief

idly so that the faint sweet smell of the cologne could reach his

nose. She was proud of the cologne, for no other woman in the room

was wearing any and Frank had noticed it. In a fit of daring he

had whispered to her that she was as pink and fragrant as a rose.

If only he were not so shy! He reminded her of a timid old brown

field rabbit. If only he had the gallantry and ardor of the

Tarleton boys or even the coarse impudence of Rhett Butler. But,

if he possessed those qualities, he'd probably have sense enough to

feel the desperation that lurked just beneath her demurely

fluttering eyelids. As it was, he didn't know enough about women

even to suspect what she was up to. That was her good fortune but

it did not increase her respect for him.

CHAPTER XXXVI

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