Impulse to snatch off her bonnet and toss it into the air and cry

"Hurray!" Then she thought how startled Ashley would be if she did

this, and she suddenly laughed, laughed until tears came to her

eyes. He laughed, too, throwing back his head as though he enjoyed

laughter, thinking her mirth came from the friendly treachery of

the men who had given Melly's secret away.

"Come in, Scarlett. I'm going over the books."

She passed into the small room, blazing with the afternoon sun, and

sat down in the chair before the roll-topped desk. Ashley,

following her, seated himself on the corner of the rough table, his

long legs dangling easily.

"Oh, don't let's fool with any books this afternoon, Ashley! I

just can't be bothered. When I'm wearing a new bonnet, it seems

like all the figures I know leave my head."

"Figures are well lost when the bonnet's as pretty as that one," he

said. "Scarlett, you get prettier all the time!"

He slipped from the table and, laughing, took her hands, spreading

them wide so he could see her dress. "You are so pretty! I don't

believe you'll ever get old!"

At his touch she realized that, without being conscious of it, she

had hoped that just this thing would happen. All this happy

afternoon, she had hoped for the warmth of his hands, the

tenderness of his eyes, a word that would show he cared. This was

the first time they had been utterly alone since the cold day in

the orchard at Tara, the first time their hands had met in any but

formal gestures, and through the long months she had hungered for

closer contact. But now--

How odd that the touch of his hands did not excite her! Once his

Very nearness would have set her a-tremble. Now she felt a curious

warm friendliness and content. No fever leaped from his hands to

hers and in his hands her heart hushed to happy quietness. This

puzzled her, made her a little disconcerted. He was still her

Ashley, still her bright, shining darling and she loved him better

than life. Then why--

But she pushed the thought from her mind. It was enough that she

was with him and he was holding her hands and smiling, completely

friendly, without strain or fever. It seemed miraculous that this

could be when she thought of all the unsaid things that lay between

them. His eyes looked into hers, clear and shining, smiling in the

old way she loved, smiling as though there had never been anything

between them but happiness. There was no barrier between his eyes

and hers now, no baffling remoteness. She laughed.

"Oh, Ashley, I'm getting old and decrepit."

"Ah, that's very apparent! No, Scarlett, when you are sixty,

you'll look the same to me. I'll always remember you as you were

that day of our last barbecue, sitting under an oak with a dozen

boys around you. I can even tell you just how you were dressed, in

a white dress covered with tiny green flowers and a white lace

shawl about your shoulders. You had on little green slippers with

black lacings and an enormous leghorn hat with long green

streamers. I know that dress by heart because when I was in prison

and things got too bad, I'd take out my memories and thumb them

over like pictures, recalling every little detail--"

He stopped abruptly and the eager light faded from his face. He

dropped her hands gently and she sat waiting, waiting for his next

words.

"We've come a long way, both of us, since that day, haven't we,

Scarlett? We've traveled roads we never expected to travel.

You've come swiftly, directly, and I, slowly and reluctantly."

He sat down on the table again and looked at her and a small smile

crept back into his face. But it was not the smile that had made

her so happy so short a while before. It was a bleak smile.

"Yes, you came swiftly, dragging me at your chariot wheels.

Scarlett, sometimes I have an impersonal curiosity as to what would

have happened to me without you."

Scarlett went quickly to defend him from himself, more quickly

because treacherously there rose to her mind Rhett's words on this

same subject.

"But I've never done anything for you, Ashley. Without me, you'd

have been just the same. Some day, you'd have been a rich man, a

great man like you are going to be."

"No, Scarlett, the seeds of greatness were never in me. I think

that if it hadn't been for you, I'd have gone down into oblivion--

like poor Cathleen Calvert and so many other people who once had

great names, old names."

"Oh, Ashley, don't talk like that. You sound so sad."

"No, I'm not sad. Not any longer. Once--once I was sad. Now, I'm

only--"

He stopped and suddenly she knew what he was thinking. It was the

first time she had ever known what Ashley was thinking when his

eyes went past her, crystal clear, absent. When the fury of love

had beaten in her heart, his mind had been closed to her. Now, in

the quiet friendliness that lay between them, she could walk a

little way into his mind, understand a little. He was not sad any

longer. He had been sad after the surrender, sad when she begged

him to come to Atlanta. Now, he was only resigned.

"I hate to hear you talk like that, Ashley," she said vehemently.

"You sound just like Rhett. He's always harping on things like

that and something he calls the survival of the fitting till I'm so

bored I could scream."

Ashley smiled.

"Did you ever stop to think, Scarlett, that Rhett and I are

fundamentally alike?"

"Oh, no! You are so fine, so honorable and he--" She broke off,

confused.

"But we are. We came of the same kind of people, we were raised in

the same pattern, brought up to think the same things. And

somewhere along the road we took different turnings. We still

think alike but we react differently. As, for instance, neither of

us believed in the war but I enlisted and fought and he stayed out

till nearly the end. We both knew the war was all wrong. We both

knew it was a losing fight. I was willing to fight a losing fight.

He wasn't. Sometimes I think he was right and then, again--"

"Oh, Ashley, when will you stop seeing both sides of questions?"

she asked. But she did not speak impatiently as she once would

have done. "No one ever gets anywhere seeing both sides."

"That's true but--Scarlett, just where do you want to get? I've

often wondered. You see, I never wanted to get anywhere at all.

I've only wanted to be myself."

Where did she want to get? That was a silly question. Money and

security, of course. And yet-- Her mind fumbled. She had money

and as much security as one could hope for in an insecure world.

But, now that she thought about it, they weren't quite enough. Now

that she thought about it, they hadn't made her particularly happy,

though they made her less harried, less fearful of the morrow. If

I'd had money and security and you, that would have been where I

wanted to get, she thought, looking at him yearningly. But she did

not speak the words, fearful of breaking the spell that lay between

them, fearful that his mind would close against her.

"You only want to be yourself?" she laughed, a little ruefully.

"Not being myself has always been my hardest trouble! As to where

I want to get, well, I guess I've gotten there. I wanted to be

rich and safe and--"

"But, Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that I don't care whether

I'm rich or not?"

No, it had never occurred to her that anyone would not want to be

rich.

"Then, what do you want?"

"I don't know, now. I knew once but I've half forgotten. Mostly

to be left alone, not to be harried by people I don't like, driven

to do things I don't want to do. Perhaps--I want the old days back

again and they'll never come back, and I am haunted by the memory

of them and of the world falling about my ears."

Scarlett set her mouth obstinately. It was not that she did not

know what he meant. The very tones of his voice called up other

days as nothing else could, made her heart hurt suddenly, as she

too remembered. But since the day she had lain sick and desolate