第396章

“Ah, darling,” she said coming forward, hoping he would put out his arms and draw her to his knees. “Darling, I’m so sorry but I’ll make it all up to you! We can be so happy, now that we know the truth and—Rhett—look at me, Rhett! There—there can be other babies—not like Bonnie but—”

“Thank you, no,” said Rhett, as if he were refusing a piece of bread. “I’ll not risk my heart a third time.”

“Rhett, don’t say such things! Oh, what can I say to make you understand? I’ve told you how sorry I am—”

“My darling, you’re such a child. You think that by saying, ‘I’m sorry,’ all the errors and hurts of years past can be remedied, obliterated from the mind, all the poison drawn from old wounds. ... Take my handkerchief, Scarlett. Never, at any crisis of your life, have I known you to have a handkerchief.”

She took the handkerchief, blew her nose and sat down. It was obvious that he was not going to take her in his arms. It was beginning to be obvious that all his talk about loving her meant nothing. It was a tale of a time long past and he was looking at it as though it had never happened to him. And that was frightening. He looked at her in an almost kindly way, speculation in his eyes.

“How old are you, my dear? You never would tell me.”

“Twenty-eight,” she answered dully, muffled in the handkerchief.

“That’s not a vast age. It’s a young age to have gained the whole world and lost your own soul, isn’t it? Don’t look frightened. I’m not referring to hell fire to come for your affair with Ashley. I’m merely speaking metaphorically. Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve wanted two things. Ashley and to be rich enough to tell the world to go to hell. Well, you are rich enough and you’ve spoken sharply to the world and you’ve got Ashley, if you want him. But all that doesn’t seem to be enough now.”

She was frightened but not at the thought of hell fire. She was thinking: “But Rhett is my soul and I’m losing him. And if I lose him, nothing else matters! No, not friends or money or—or anything. If only I had him I wouldn’t even mind being poor again. No, I wouldn’t mind being cold again or even hungry. But he can’t mean— Oh, he can’t!”

She wiped her eyes and said desperately:

“Rhett, if you once loved me so much, there must be something left for me.”

“Out of it all I find only two things that remain and they are the two things you hate the most—pity and an odd feeling of kindness.”

Pity! Kindness! “Oh, my God,” she thought despairingly. Anything hut pity and kindness. Whenever she felt these two emotions for anyone, they went hand in hand with contempt Was he contemptuous of her too? Anything would be preferable to that. Even the cynical coolness of the war days, the drunken madness that drove him the night he carried her up the stairs, his hard fingers bruising her body, or the barbed drawling words that she now realized had covered a bitter love. Anything except this impersonal kindness that was written so plainly in his face.

“Then—then you mean I’ve ruined it all—that you don’t love me any more?”

“That’s right.”

“But,” she said stubbornly, like a child who still feels that to state a desire is to gain that desire, “but I love you!”

“That’s your misfortune.”

She looked up quickly to see if there was a jeer behind those words but there was none. He was simply stating a fact. But it was a fact she still would not believe—could not believe. She looked at him with slanting eyes that burned with a desperate obstinacy and the sudden hard line of jaw that sprang out through her soft cheek was Gerald’s jaw.

“Don’t be a fool, Rhett! I can make—”

He flung up a hand in mock horror and his black brows went up in the old sardonic crescents.

“Don’t look so determined, Scarlett! You frighten me. I see you are contemplating the transfer of your tempestuous affections from Ashley to me and I fear for my liberty and my peace of mind. No, Scarlett, I will not be pursued as the luckless Ashley was pursued. Besides, I am going away.”

Her jaw trembled before she clenched her teeth to steady it. Go away? No, anything but that! How could life go on without him? Everyone had gone from her, everyone who mattered except Rhett. He couldn’t go. But how could she stop him? She was powerless against his cool mind, his disinterested words.

“I am going away. I intended to tell you when you came home from Marietta.”

“You are deserting me?”

“Don’t be the neglected, dramatic wife, Scarlett. The role isn’t becoming. I take it, then, you do not want a divorce or even a separation? Well, then, I’ll come back often enough to keep gossip down.”

“Damn gossip!” she said fiercely. “It’s you I want. Take me with you!”

“No,” he said, and there was finality in his voice. For a moment she was on the verge of an outburst of childish wild tears. She could have thrown herself on the floor, cursed and screamed and drummed her heels. But some remnant of pride, of common sense stiffened her. She thought, if I did, he’d only laugh, or just look at me. I mustn’t bawl; I mustn’t beg. I mustn’t do anything to risk his contempt. He must respect me even—even if he doesn’t love me.

She lifted her chin and managed to ask quietly:

“Where will you go?”

There was a faint gleam of admiration in his eyes as he answered.

“Perhaps to England—or to Paris. Perhaps to Charleston to try to make peace with my people.”

“But you hate them! I’ve heard you laugh at them so often and—”

He shrugged.