In deference to the feelings of Frank and Pitty who would have been

outraged at a male caller while Scarlett was in a delicate

condition. But she met him by accident almost every day. Time and

again, he came riding up to her buggy when she was passing through

lonely stretches of Peachtree road and Decatur road where the mills

lay. He always drew rein and talked and sometimes he tied his

horse to the back of the buggy and drove her on her rounds. She

tired more easily these days than she liked to admit and she was

always silently grateful when he took the reins. He always left

her before they reached the town again but all Atlanta knew about

their meetings, and it gave the gossips something new to add to the

long list of Scarlett's affronts to the proprieties.

She wondered occasionally if these meetings were not more than

accidental. They became more and more numerous as the weeks went

by and as the tension in town heightened over negro outrages. But

why did he seek her out, now of all times when she looked her

worst? Certainly he had no designs upon her if he had ever had

any, and she was beginning to doubt even this. It had been months

since he made any joking references to their distressing scene at

the Yankee jail. He never mentioned Ashley and her love for him,

or made any coarse and ill-bred remarks about "coveting her." She

thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie, so she did not ask for an

explanation of their frequent meetings. And finally she decided

that, because he had little to do besides gamble and had few enough

nice friends in Atlanta, he sought her out solely for companionship's

sake.

Whatever his reason might be, she found his company most welcome.

He listened to her moans about lost customers and bad debts, the

swindling ways of Mr. Johnson and the incompetency of Hugh. He

applauded her triumphs, where Frank merely smiled indulgently and

Pitty said "Dear me!" in a dazed manner. She was sure that he

frequently threw business her way, for he knew all the rich Yankees

and Carpetbaggers intimately, but he always denied being helpful.

She knew him for what he was and she never trusted him, but her

spirits always rose with pleasure at the sight of him riding around

the curve of a shady road on his big black horse. When he climbed

into the buggy and took the reins from her and threw her some

impertinent remark, she felt young and gay and attractive again,

for all her worries and her increasing bulk. She could talk to him

about almost everything, with no care for concealing her motives or

her real opinions and she never ran out of things to say as she did

with Frank--or even with Ashley, if she must be honest with

herself. But of course, in all her conversations with Ashley there

were so many things which could not be said, for honor's sake, that

the sheer force of them inhibited other remarks. It was comforting

to have a friend like Rhett, now that for some unaccountable reason

he had decided to be on good behavior with her. Very comforting,

for she had so few friends these days.

"Rhett," she asked stormily, shortly after Uncle Peter's ultimatum,

"why do folks in this town treat me so scurvily and talk about me

so? It's a toss-up who they talk worst about, me or the

Carpetbaggers! I've minded my own business and haven't done

anything wrong and--"

"If you haven't done anything wrong, it's because you haven't had

the opportunity, and perhaps they dimly realize it."

"Oh, do be serious! They make me so mad. All I've done is try to

make a little money and--"

"All you've done is to be different from other women and you've

made a little success at it. As I've told you before, that is the

one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!

Scarlett, the mere fact that you've made a success of your mill is

an insult to every man who hasn't succeeded. Remember, a well-bred

female's place is in the home and she should know nothing about

this busy, brutal world."

"But if I had stayed in my home, I wouldn't have had any home left

to stay in."

"The inference is that you should have starved genteelly and with

pride."

"Oh, fiddle-dee-dee! But look at Mrs. Merriwether. She's selling

pies to Yankees and that's worse than running a sawmill, and Mrs.

Elsing takes in sewing and keeps boarders, and Fanny paints awful-

looking china things that nobody wants and everybody buys to help

her and--"

"But you miss the point, my pet. They aren't successful and so

they aren't affronting the hot Southern pride of their men folks.

The men can still say, 'Poor sweet sillies, how hard they try!

Well, I'll let them think they're helping.' And besides, the

ladies you mentioned don't enjoy having to work. They let it be

known that they are only doing it until some man comes along to

relieve them of their unwomanly burdens. And so everybody feels

sorry for them. But obviously you do like to work and obviously

you aren't going to let any man tend to your business for you, and

so no one can feel sorry for you. And Atlanta is never going to

forgive you for that. It's so pleasant to feel sorry for people."

"I wish you'd be serious, sometimes."

"Did you ever hear the Oriental proverb: 'The dogs bark but the

caravan passes on?' Let them bark, Scarlett. I fear nothing will

stop your caravan."

"But why should they mind my making a little money?"

"You can't have everything, Scarlett. You can either make money in

your present unladylike manner and meet cold shoulders everywhere

you go, or you can be poor and genteel and have lots of friends.

You've made your choice."

"I won't be poor," she said swiftly. "But--it is the right choice,

isn't it?"

"If it's money you want most."

"Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world."

"Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached,

as there is to most things you want. It's loneliness."

That silenced her for a moment. It was true. When she stopped to

think about it, she was a little lonely--lonely for feminine

companionship. During the war years she had had Ellen to visit

when she felt blue. And since Ellen's death, there had always been

Melanie, though she and Melanie had nothing in common except the

hard work at Tara. Now there was no one, for Aunt Pitty had no

conception of life beyond her small round of gossip.

"I think--I think," she began hesitantly, "that I've always been

lonely where women were concerned. It isn't just my working that

makes Atlanta ladies dislike me. They just don't like me anyway.

No woman ever really liked me, except Mother. Even my sisters.

I don't know why, but even before the war, even before I married

Charlie, ladies didn't seem to approve of anything I did--"

"You forget Mrs. Wilkes," said Rhett and his eyes gleamed

maliciously. "She has always approved of you up to the hilt.

I daresay she'd approve of anything you did, short of murder."

Scarlett thought grimly: "She's even approved of murder," and she

laughed contemptuously.

"Oh, Melly!" she said, and then, ruefully: "It's certainly not to

my credit that Melly is the only woman who approves of me, for she

hasn't the sense of a guinea hen. If she had any sense--" She

stopped in some confusion.

"If she had any sense, she'd realize a few things and she couldn't

approve," Rhett finished. "Well, you know more about that than I

do, of course."

"Oh, damn your memory and your bad manners!"

"I'll pass over your unjustified rudeness with the silence it

deserves and return to our former subject. Make up your mind to

this. If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people

of your own age but from those of your parents' generation and from

your children's generation too. They'll never understand you and

they'll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents

would probably be proud of you and say: 'There's a chip off the

old block,' and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say:

'What an old rip Grandma must have been!' and they'll try to be

like you."

Scarlett laughed with amusement.

"Sometimes you do hit on the truth! Now there was my Grandma

Robillard. Mammy used to hold her over my head whenever I was

naughty. Grandma was as cold as an icicle and strict about her

manners and everybody else's manners, but she married three times

and had any number of duels fought over her and she wore rouge and

the most shockingly low-cut dresses and no--well, er--not much

under her dresses."

"And you admired her tremendously, for all that you tried to be

like your mother! I had a grandfather on the Butler side who was a

pirate."

"Not really! A walk-the-plank kind?"

"I daresay he made people walk the plank if there was any money to

be made that way. At any rate, he made enough money to leave my

father quite wealthy. But the family always referred to him

carefully as a 'sea captain.' He was killed in a saloon brawl long

before I was born. His death was, needless to say, a great relief

to his children, for the old gentleman was drunk most of the time

and when in his cups was apt to forget that he was a retired sea

captain and give reminiscences that curled his children's hair.

However, I admired him and tried to copy him far more than I ever

did my father, for Father is an amiable gentleman full of honorable

habits and pious saws--so you see how it goes. I'm sure your

children won't approve of you, Scarlett, any more than Mrs.

Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and their broods approve of you now.

Your children will probably be soft, prissy creatures, as the

children of hard-bitten characters usually are. And to make them

worse, you, like every other mother, are probably determined that

they shall never know the hardships you've known. And that's all

wrong. Hardships make or break people. So you'll have to wait for

approval from your grandchildren."

"I wonder what our grandchildren will be like!"

"Are you suggesting by that 'our' that you and I will have mutual

grandchildren? Fie, Mrs. Kennedy!"

Scarlett, suddenly conscious of her error of speech, went red. It

was more than his joking words that shamed her, for she was

suddenly aware again of her thickening body. In no way had either

of them ever hinted at her condition and she had always kept the

lap robe high under her armpits when with him, even on warm days,

comforting herself in the usual feminine manner with the belief

that she did not show at all when thus covered, and she was

suddenly sick with quick rage at her own condition and shame that

he should know.

"You get out of this buggy, you dirty-minded varmit," she said, her