“I just don’t know what to do,” she would moan. “He just looks at me and I—I’m scared to death of what he would do if I told him. He’s got such a bad reputation. Do you suppose he would strike me—or—or— Oh, dear, if Charlie were only alive! Scarlett, you must tell him not to call again—tell him in a nice way. Oh, me! I do believe you encourage him, and the whole town is talking and, if your mother ever finds out, what will she say to me? Melly, you must not be so nice to him. Be cool and distant and he will understand. Oh, Melly, do you think I’d better write Henry a note and ask him to speak to Captain Butler?”
“No, I don’t,” said Melanie. “And I won’t be rude to him, either. I think people are acting like chickens with their heads off about Captain Butler. I’m sure he can’t be all the bad things Dr. Meade and Mrs. Merriwether say he is. He wouldn’t hold food from starving people. Why, he even gave me a hundred dollars for the orphans. I’m sure he’s just as loyal and patriotic as any of us and he’s just too proud to defend himself. You know how obstinate men are when they get their backs up.”
Aunt Pitty knew nothing about men, either with their backs up or otherwise, and she could only wave her fat little hands helplessly. As for Scarlett, she had long ago become resigned to Melanie’s habit of seeing good in everyone. Melanie was a fool, but there was nothing anybody could do about it.
Scarlett knew that Rhett was not being patriotic and, though she would have died rather than confess it, she did not care. The little presents he brought her from Nassau, little oddments that a lady could accept with propriety, were what mattered most to her. With prices as high as they were, where on earth could she get needles and bonbons and hairpins, if she forbade the house to him? No, it was easier to shift the responsibility to Aunt Pitty, who after all was the head of the house, the chaperon and the arbiter of morals. Scarlett knew the town gossiped about Rhett’s calls, and about her too; but she also knew that in the eyes of Atlanta Melanie Wilkes could do no wrong, and if Melanie defended Rhett his calls were still tinged with respectability.
However, life would be pleasanter if Rhett would recant his heresies. She wouldn’t have to suffer the embarrassment of seeing him cut openly when she walked down Peachtree Street with him.
“Even if you think such things, why do you say them?” she scolded. “If you’d just think what you please but keep your mouth shut, everything would be so much nicer.”
“That’s your system, isn’t it, my green-eyed hypocrite? Scarlett, Scarlett! I hoped for more courageous conduct from you. I thought the Irish said what they thought and the Divvil take the hindermost. Tell me truthfully, don’t you sometimes almost burst from keeping your mouth shut?”
“Well—yes,” Scarlett confessed reluctantly. “I do get awfully bored when they talk about the Cause, morning, noon and night. But goodness, Rhett Butler, if I admitted it nobody would speak to me and none of the boys would dance with me!”
“Ah, yes, and one must be danced with, at all costs. Well, I admire your self-control but I do not find myself equal to it. Nor can I masquerade in a cloak of romance and patriotism, no matter how convenient it might be. There are enough stupid patriots who are risking every cent they have in the blockade and who are going to come out of this war paupers. They don’t need me among their number, either to brighten the record of patriotism or to increase the roll of paupers, Let them have the haloes. They deserve them—for once I am being sincere—and, besides, haloes will be about all they will have in a year or so.”
“I think you are very nasty to even hint such things when you know very well that England and France are coming in on our side in no time and—”
“Why, Scarlett! You must have been reading a newspaper! I’m surprised at you. Don’t do it again. It addles women’s brains. For your information, I was in England, not a month ago, and I’ll tell you this. England will never help the Confederacy. England never bets on the underdog. That’s why she’s England. Besides, the fat Dutch woman who is sitting on the throne is a God-fearing soul and she doesn’t approve of slavery. Let the English mill workers starve because they can’t get our cotton but never, never strike a blow for slavery. And as for France, that weak imitation of Napoleon is far too busy establishing the French in Mexico to be bothered with us. In fact he welcomes this war, because it keeps us too busy to run his troops out of Mexico. ... No, Scarlett, the idea of assistance from abroad is just a newspaper invention to keep up the morale of the South. The Confederacy is doomed. It’s living on its hump now, like the camel, and even the largest of humps aren’t inexhaustible. I give myself about six months more of blockading and then I’m through. After that, it will be too risky. And I’ll sell my boats to some foolish Englishman who thinks he can slip them through. But one way or the other, it’s not bothering me. I’ve made money enough, and it’s in English banks and in gold. None of this worthless paper for me.”
As always when he spoke, he sounded so plausible. Other people might call his utterances treachery but, to Scarlett, they always rang with common sense and truth. And she knew that this was utterly wrong, knew she should be shocked and infuriated. Actually she was neither, but she could pretend to be. It made her feel more respectable and ladylike.
“I think what Dr. Meade wrote about was right, Captain Butler. The only way to redeem yourself is to enlist after you sell your boats. You’re a West Pointer and—”
“You talk like a Baptist preacher ****** a recruiting speech. Suppose I don’t want to redeem myself? Why should I fight to uphold the system that cast me out? I shall take pleasure in seeing it smashed.”
“I never heard of any system,” she said crossly.