"Ah!" she thought, triumphantly. "Now I've got him!" And she answered with studied coolness: "Indeed, no. That is--not unless you mended your manners considerably."
"And I have no intention of mending them. So you could not love me? That is as I hoped.
For while I like you immensely, I do not love you and it would be tragic indeed for you to suffer twice from unrequited love, wouldn't it, dear? May I call you 'dear,' Mrs. Hamilton? I shall call you 'dear' whether you like it or not, so no matter, but the proprieties must be observed."
"You don't love me?"
"No, indeed. Did you hope that I did?"
"Don't be so presumptuous!"
"You hoped! Alas, to blight your hopes! I should love you, for you are charming and
talented at many useless accomplishments. But many ladies have charm and accomplishments
and are just as useless as you are. No, I don't love you. But I do like you tremendously--for the elasticity of your conscience, for the selfishness which you seldom trouble to hide, and for the shrewd practicality in you which, I fear, you get from some not too remote Irish-peasant
ancestor."
Peasant! Why, he was insulting her! She began to splutter wordlessly.
"Don't interrupt," he begged, squeezing her hand. "I like you because I have those same qualities in me and like begets liking. I realize you still cherish the memory of the godlike and wooden-headed Mr. Wilkes, who's probably been in his grave these six months. But there must be room in your heart for me too. Scarlett, do stop wriggling! I am making you a declaration. I have wanted you since the first time I laid eyes on you, in the hall of Twelve Oaks, when you were bewitching poor Charlie Hamilton. I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman--
and I've waited longer for you than I've ever waited for any woman."
She was breathless with surprise at his last words. In spite of all his insults, he did love her and he was just so contrary he didn't want to come out frankly and put it into words, for fear she'd laugh. Well, she'd show him and right quickly.
"Are you asking me to marry you?"
He dropped her hand and laughed so loudly she shrank back in her chair.
"Good Lord, no! Didn't I tell you I wasn't a marrying man?"
"But--but--what--"
He rose to his feet and, hand on heart, made her a burlesque bow.
"Dear," he said quietly, "I am complimenting your intelligence by asking you to be my mistress without having first seduced you."
Mistress!
Her mind shouted the word, shouted that she had been vilely insulted. But in that first
startled moment she did not feel insulted. She only felt a furious surge of indignation that he should think her such a fool. He must think her a fool if he offered her a proposition like that, instead of the proposal of matrimony she had been expecting. Rage, punctured vanity and
disappointment threw her mind into a turmoil and, before she even thought of the high moral grounds on which she should upbraid him, she blurted out the first words which came to her lips--
"Mistress! What would I get out of that except a passel of brats?"
And then her jaw dropped in horror as she realized what she had said. He laughed until he choked, peering at her in the shadows as she sat, stricken dumb, pressing her handkerchief to her mouth.
"That's why I like you! You are the only frank woman I know, the only woman who looks on the practical side of matters without beclouding the issue with mouthings about sin and morality. Any other woman would have swooned first and then shown me the door."
Scarlett leaped to her feet, her face red with shame. How could she have said such a thing!
How could she, Ellen's daughter, with her upbringing, have sat there and listened to such debasing words and then made such a shameless reply? She should have screamed. She should have fainted. She should have turned coldly away in silence and swept from the porch. Too late now!
"I will show you the door," she shouted, not caring if Melanie or the Meades, down the street, did hear her. "Get out! How dare you say such things to me! What have I ever done to encourage you--to make you suppose … Get out and don't ever come back here. I mean it this time. Don't you ever come back here with any of your piddling papers of pins and ribbons, thinking I'll forgive you. I'll--I'll tell my father and he'll kill you!"
He picked up his hat and bowed and she saw in the light of the lamp that his teeth were
showing in a smile beneath his mustache. He was not ashamed, he was amused at what she had said, and he was watching her with alert interest.