For instance when she decided to change the name of "Kennedy's General Store" to something more edifying, she asked him to think of a title that would include the word
"emporium." Rhett suggested "_Caveat Emptorium,_" assuring her that it would be a title most in keeping with the type of goods sold in the store. She thought it had an imposing sound and even went so far as to have the sign painted, when Ashley Wilkes, embarrassed, translated the real meaning. And Rhett had roared at her rage.
And there was the way he treated Mammy. Mammy had never yielded an inch from her
stand that Rhett was a mule in horse harness. She was polite but cold to Rhett. She always called him "Cap'n Butler," never "Mist' Rhett." She never even dropped a curtsy when Rhett presented her with the red petticoat and she never wore it either. She kept Ella and Wade out of Rhett's way whenever she could, despite the fact that Wade adored Uncle Rhett and Rhett was obviously fond of the boy. But instead of discharging Mammy or being short and stern with her, Rhett treated her with the utmost deference, with far more courtesy than he treated any of the ladies of Scarlett's recent acquaintance. In fact, with more courtesy than he treated Scarlett herself. He always asked Mammy's permission, to take Wade riding and consulted with her before he bought Ella dolls.
And Mammy was hardly polite to him.
Scarlett felt that Rhett should be firm with Mammy, as became the head of the house, but
Rhett only laughed and said that Mammy was the real head of the house.
He infuriated Scarlett by saying coolly that he was preparing to be very sorry for her some years hence, when the Republican rule was gone from Georgia and the Democrats back in power.
"When the Democrats get a governor and a legislature of their own, all your new vulgar Republican friends will be wiped off the chess board and sent back to minding bars and emptying slops where they belong. And you'll be left out on the end of a limb, with never a Democratic friend or a Republican either. Well, take no thought of the morrow."
Scarlett laughed, and with some justice, for at that time, Bullock was safe in the
governor's chair, twenty-seven negroes were in the legislature and thousands of the Democratic voters of Georgia were disfranchised.
"The Democrats will never get back. All they do is make Yankees madder and put off the day when they could get back. All they do is talk big and run around at night Ku Kluxing."
"They will get back. I know Southerners. I know Georgians. They are a tough and
bullheaded lot. If they've got to fight another war to get back, they'll fight another war. If they've got to buy black votes like the Yankees have done, then they will buy black votes. If they've got to vote ten thousand dead men like the Yankees did, every corpse in every cemetery in Georgia will be at the polls. Things are going to get so bad under the benign rule of our good friend Rufus Bullock that Georgia is going to vomit him up."
"Rhett, don't use such vulgar words!" cried Scarlett. "You talk like I wouldn't be glad to see the Democrats come back! And you know that isn't so! I'd be very glad to see them back. Do
you think I like to see these soldiers hanging around, reminding me of--do you think I like--why, I'm a Georgian, too! I'd like to see the Democrats get back. But they won't. Not ever. And even if they did, how would that affect my friends? They'd still have their money, wouldn't they?"
"If they kept their money. But I doubt the ability of any of them to keep money more than five years at the rate they're spending. Easy come, easy go. Their money won't do them any good.
Any more than my money has done you any good. It certainly hasn't made a horse out of you yet, has it, my pretty mule?"
The quarrel which sprang from this last remark lasted for days. After the fourth day of
Scarlett's sulks and obvious silent demands for an apology, Rhett went to New Orleans, taking Wade with him, over Mammy's protests, and he stayed away until Scarlett's tantrum had passed.
But the sting of not humbling him remained with her.
When he came back from New Orleans, cool and bland, she swallowed her anger as best
she could, pushing it into the back of her mind to be thought of at some later date. She did not want to bother with anything unpleasant now. She wanted to be happy for her mind was full of the first party she would give in the new house. It would be an enormous night reception with palms and an orchestra and all the porches shrouded in canvas, and a collation that made her mouth water in anticipation. To it she intended to invite everyone she had ever known in Atlanta, all the old friends and all the new and charming ones she had met since returning from her honeymoon. The excitement of the party banished, for the most part, the memory of Rhett's barbs and she was happy, happier than she had been in years as she planned her reception.