Interested in such matters. He took her expression to mean

stunned approbation and went on rapidly, daringly--

"If I went--would--would you be sorry, Miss O'Hara?"

"I should cry into my pillow every night," said Scarlett, meaning

to be flippant, but he took the statement at face value and went

red with pleasure. Her hand was concealed in the folds of her

dress and he cautiously wormed his hand to it and squeezed it,

overwhelmed at his own boldness and at her acquiescence.

"Would you pray for me?"

"What a fool!" thought Scarlett bitterly, casting a surreptitious

glance about her in the hope of being rescued from the conversation.

"Would you?"

"Oh--yes, indeed, Mr. Hamilton. Three Rosaries a night, at

least!"

Charles gave a swift look about him, drew in his breath, stiffened

the muscles of his stomach. They were practically alone and he

might never get another such opportunity. And, even given another

such Godsent occasion, his courage might fail him.

"Miss O'Hara--I must tell you something. I--I love you!"

"Um?" said Scarlett absently, trying to peer through the crowd of

arguing men to where Ashley still sat talking at Melanie's feet.

"Yes!" whispered Charles, in a rapture that she had neither

laughed, screamed nor fainted, as he had always imagined young

girls did under such circumstances. "I love you! You are the

most--the most--" and he found his tongue for the first time in

his life. "The most beautiful girl I've ever known and the

sweetest and the kindest, and you have the dearest ways and I love

you with all my heart. I cannot hope that you could love anyone

like me but, my dear Miss O'Hara, if you can give me any

encouragement, I will do anything in the world to make you love

me. I will--"

Charles stopped, for he couldn't think of anything difficult

enough of accomplishment to really prove to Scarlett the depth of

his feeling, so he said simply: "I want to marry you."

Scarlett came back to earth with a jerk, at the sound of the word

"marry." She had been thinking of marriage and of Ashley, and she

looked at Charles with poorly concealed irritation. Why must this

calf-like fool intrude his feelings on this particular day when

she was so worried she was about to lose her mind? She looked

into the pleading brown eyes and she saw none of the beauty of a

shy boy's first love, of the adoration of an ideal come true or

the wild happiness and tenderness that were sweeping through him

like a flame. Scarlett was used to men asking her to marry them,

men much more attractive than Charles Hamilton, and men who had

more finesse than to propose at a barbecue when she had more

important matters on her mind. She only saw a boy of twenty, red

as a beet and looking very silly. She wished that she could tell

him how silly he looked. But automatically, the words Ellen had

taught her to say in such emergencies rose to her lips and casting

down her eyes, from force of long habit, she murmured: "Mr.

Hamilton, I am not unaware of the honor you have bestowed on me in

wanting me to become your wife, but this is all so sudden that I

do not know what to say."

That was a neat way of smoothing a man's vanity and yet keeping

him on the string, and Charles rose to it as though such bait were

new and he the first to swallow it.

"I would wait forever! I wouldn't want you unless you were quite

sure. Please, Miss O'Hara, tell me that I may hope!"

"Um," said Scarlett, her sharp eyes noting that Ashley, who had

not risen to take part in the war talk, was smiling up at Melanie.