But when she looked at Ashley he was no longer young and shining. His head was bowed
as he looked down absently at her hand which he still held and she saw that his once bright hair was very gray, silver gray as moonlight on still water. Somehow the bright beauty had gone from the April afternoon and from her heart as well and the sad sweetness of remembering was as bitter as gall.
"I shouldn't have let him make me look back," she thought despairingly. "I was right when I said I'd never look back. It hurts too much, it drags at your heart till you can't ever do anything else except look back. That's what's wrong with Ashley. He can't look forward any more. He can't see the present, he fears the future, and so he looks back. I never understood it before. I never understood Ashley before. Oh, Ashley, my darling, you shouldn't look back! What
good will it do? I shouldn't have let you tempt me into talking of the old days. This is what happens when you look back to happiness, this pain, this heartbreak, this discontent."
She rose to her feet, her hand still in his. She must go. She could not stay and think of the old days and see his face, tired and sad and bleak as it now was.
"We've come a long way since those days, Ashley," she said, trying to steady her voice, trying to fight the constriction in her throat. "We had fine notions then, didn't we?" And then, with a rush, "Oh, Ashley, nothing has turned out as we expected!"
"It never does," he said. "Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is."
Her heart was suddenly dull with pain, with weariness, as she thought of the long road she had come since those days. There rose up in her mind the memory of Scarlett O'Hara who loved beaux and pretty dresses and who intended, some day, when she had the time, to be a great lady like Ellen.
Without warning, tears started in her eyes and rolled slowly down her cheeks and she
stood looking at him dumbly, like a hurt bewildered child. He said no word but took her gently in his arms, pressed her head against his shoulder and, leaning down, laid his cheek against hers.
She relaxed against him and her arms went round his body. The comfort of his arms helped dry her sudden tears. Ah, it was good to be in his arms, without passion, without tenseness, to be there as a loved friend. Only Ashley who shared her memories and her youth, who knew her
beginnings and her present could understand.
She heard the sound of feet outside but paid little heed, thinking it was the teamsters
going home. She stood for a moment, listening to the slow beat of Ashley's heart. Then suddenly he wrenched himself from her, confusing her by his violence. She looked up into his face in surprise but he was not looking at her. He was looking over her shoulder at the door.
She turned and there stood India, white faced, her pale eyes blazing, and Archie,
malevolent as a one-eyed parrot. Behind them stood Mrs. Elsing.
How she got out of the office she never remembered. But she went instantly, swiftly, by
Ashley's order, leaving Ashley and Archie in grim converse in the little room and India and Mrs.
Elsing outside with their backs to her. Shame and fear sped her homeward and, in her mind, Archie with his patriarch's beard assumed the proportions of an avenging angel straight from the pages of the Old Testament.
The house was empty and still in the April sunset. All the servants had gone to a funeral and the children were playing in Melanie's back yard. Melanie--
Melanie! Scarlett went cold at the thought of her as she climbed the stairs to her room.
Melanie would hear of this. India had said she would tell her. Oh, India would glory in telling her, not caring if she blackened Ashley's name, not caring if she hurt Melanie, if by so doing she could injure Scarlett! And Mrs. Elsing would talk too, even though she had really seen nothing, because she was behind India and Archie in the door of the lumber office. But she would talk, just the same. The news would be all over town by supper time. Everyone, even the negroes, would know by tomorrow's breakfast. At the party tonight, women would gather in corners and whisper discreetly and with malicious pleasure. Scarlett Butler rumbled from her high and mighty place! And the story would grow and grow. There was no way of stopping it. It wouldn't stop at the bare facts, that Ashley was holding her in his arms while she cried. Before nightfall people would be saying she had been taken in adultery. And it had been so innocent, so sweet! Scarlett thought wildly: If we had been caught that Christmas of his furlough when I kissed him good-by--if we had been caught in the orchard at Tara when I begged him to run away with me--oh, if