Intimate friends--wouldn't it have been wiser to wait until I got

out of jail? Or are the charms of wedlock with old Frank Kennedy

more alluring than illicit relations with me?"

As always when his mockery aroused wrath within her, wrath fought

with laughter at his impudence.

"Don't be absurd."

"And would you mind satisfying my curiosity on one point which has

bothered me for some time? Did you have no womanly repugnance, no

delicate shrinking from marrying not just one man but two for whom

you had no love or even affection? Or have I been misinformed

about the delicacy of our Southern womanhood?"

"Rhett!"

"I have my answer. I always felt that women had a hardness and

endurance unknown to men, despite the pretty idea taught me in

childhood that women are frail, tender, sensitive creatures. But

after all, according to the Continental code of etiquette, it's

very bad form for husband and wife to love each other. Very bad

taste, indeed. I always felt that the Europeans had the right idea

in that matter. Marry for convenience and love for pleasure. A

sensible system, don't you think? You are closer to the old

country than I thought."

How pleasant it would be to shout at him: "I did not marry for

convenience!" But unfortunately, Rhett had her there and any

protest of injured innocence would only bring more barbed remarks

from him.

"How you do run on," she said coolly. Anxious to change the

subject, she asked: "How did you ever get out of jail?"

"Oh, that!" he answered, making an airy gesture. "Not much

trouble. They let me out this morning. I employed a delicate

system of blackmail on a friend in Washington who is quite high in

the councils of the Federal government. A splendid fellow--one of

the staunch Union patriots from whom I used to buy muskets and hoop

skirts for the Confederacy. When my distressing predicament was

brought to his attention in the right way, he hastened to use his

Influence, and so I was released. Influence is everything, and

guilt or innocence merely an academic question."

"I'll take oath you weren't innocent."

"No, now that I am free of the toils, I'll frankly admit that I'm

as guilty as Cain. I did kill the nigger. He was uppity to a

lady, and what else could a Southern gentleman do? And while I'm

confessing, I must admit that I shot a Yankee cavalryman after some

words in a barroom. I was not charged with that peccadillo, so

perhaps some other poor devil has been hanged for it, long since."

He was so blithe about his murders her blood chilled. Words of

moral indignation rose to her lips but suddenly she remembered the

Yankee who lay under the tangle of scuppernong vines at Tara. He

had not been on her conscience any more than a roach upon which she

might have stepped. She could not sit in judgment on Rhett when

she was as guilty as he.

"And, as I seem to be making a clean breast of it, I must tell you,

In strictest confidence (that means, don't tell Miss Pittypat!)

that I did have the money, safe in a bank in Liverpool."

"The money?"

"Yes, the money the Yankees were so curious about. Scarlett, it

wasn't altogether meanness that kept me from giving you the money

you wanted. If I'd drawn a draft they could have traced it somehow

and I doubt if you'd have gotten a cent. My only hope lay in doing

nothing. I knew the money was pretty safe, for if worst came to

worst, if they had located it and tried to take it away from me, I

would have named every Yankee patriot who sold me bullets and

machinery during the war. Then there would have been a stink, for

some of them are high up in Washington now. In fact, it was my

threat to unbosom my conscience about them that got me out of jail.

I--"

"Do you mean you--you actually have the Confederate gold?"

"Not all of it. Good Heavens, no! There must be fifty or more ex-

blockaders who have plenty salted away in Nassau and England and

Canada. We will be pretty unpopular with the Confederates who

weren't as slick as we were. I have got close to half a million.

Just think, Scarlett, a half-million dollars, if you'd only

restrained your fiery nature and not rushed into wedlock again!"

A half-million dollars. She felt a pang of almost physical

sickness at the thought of so much money. His jeering words passed

over her head and she did not even hear them. It was hard to

believe there was so much money in all this bitter and poverty-

stricken world. So much money, so very much money, and someone

else had it, someone who took it lightly and didn't need it. And

she had only a sick elderly husband and this dirty, piddling,

little store between her and a hostile world. It wasn't fair that

a reprobate like Rhett Butler should have so much and she, who

carried so heavy a load, should have so little. She hated him,

sitting there in his dandified attire, taunting her. Well, she

wouldn't swell his conceit by complimenting him on his cleverness.

She longed viciously for sharp words with which to cut him.

"I suppose you think it's honest to keep the Confederate money.

Well, it isn't. It's plain out and out stealing and you know it.