It. Then he was gone before she could speak again, closing the

door softly behind him.

She sat down again very suddenly, the reaction from her rage

making her knees feel weak. He was gone and the memory of his

stricken face would haunt her till she died.

She heard the soft muffled sound of his footsteps dying away down

the long hall, and the complete enormity of her actions came over

her. She had lost him forever. Now he would hate her and every

time he looked at her he would remember how she threw herself at

him when he had given her no encouragement at all.

"I'm as bad as Honey Wilkes," she thought suddenly, and remembered

how everyone, and she more than anyone else, had laughed

contemptuously at Honey's forward conduct. She saw Honey's

awkward wigglings and heard her silly titters as she hung onto

boys' arms, and the thought stung her to new rage, rage at

herself, at Ashley, at the world. Because she hated herself, she

hated them all with the fury of the thwarted and humiliated love

of sixteen. Only a little true tenderness had been mixed into her

love. Mostly it had been compounded out of vanity and complacent

confidence in her own charms. Now she had lost and, greater than

her sense of loss, was the fear that she had made a public

spectacle of herself. Had she been as obvious as Honey? Was

everyone laughing at her? She began to shake at the thought.

Her hand dropped to a little table beside her, fingering a tiny

china rose-bowl on which two china cherubs smirked. The room was

so still she almost screamed to break the silence. She must do

something or go mad. She picked up the bowl and hurled it

Viciously across the room toward the fireplace. It barely cleared

the tall back of the sofa and splintered with a little crash

against the marble mantelpiece.

"This," said a voice from the depths of the sofa, "is too much."

Nothing had ever startled or frightened her so much, and her mouth

went too dry for her to utter a sound. She caught hold of the

back of the chair, her knees going weak under her, as Rhett Butler

rose from the sofa where he had been lying and made her a bow of

exaggerated politeness.

"It is bad enough to have an afternoon nap disturbed by such a

passage as I've been forced to hear, but why should my life be

endangered?"

He was real. He wasn't a ghost. But, saints preserve us, he had

heard everything! She rallied her forces into a semblance of

dignity.

"Sir, you should have made known your presence."

"Indeed?" His white teeth gleamed and his bold dark eyes laughed

at her. "But you were the intruder. I was forced to wait for Mr.

Kennedy, and feeling that I was perhaps persona non grata in the

back yard, I was thoughtful enough to remove my unwelcome presence

here where I thought I would be undisturbed. But, alas!" he

shrugged and laughed softly.

Her temper was beginning to rise again at the thought that this

rude and impertinent man had heard everything--heard things she

now wished she had died before she ever uttered.

"Eavesdroppers--" she began furiously.

"Eavesdroppers often hear highly entertaining and instructive

things," he grinned. "From a long experience in eavesdropping, I--"

"Sir," she said, "you are no gentleman!"

"An apt observation," he answered airily. "And, you, Miss, are no

lady." He seemed to find her very amusing, for he laughed softly

again. "No one can remain a lady after saying and doing what I

have just overheard. However, ladies have seldom held any charms

for me. I know what they are thinking, but they never have the

courage or lack of breeding to say what they think. And that, in

time, becomes a bore. But you, my dear Miss O'Hara, are a girl of

rare spirit, very admirable spirit, and I take off my hat to you.

I fail to understand what charms the elegant Mr. Wilkes can hold

for a girl of your tempestuous nature. He should thank God on

bended knee for a girl with your--how did he put it?--'passion for

living,' but being a poor-spirited wretch--"

"You aren't fit to wipe his boots!" she shouted in rage.

"And you were going to hate him all your life!" He sank down on

the sofa and she heard him laughing.

If she could have killed him, she would have done it. Instead,

she walked out of the room with such dignity as she could summon

and banged the heavy door behind her.

She went up the stairs so swiftly that when she reached the

landing, she thought she was going to faint. She stopped,

clutching the banisters, her heart hammering so hard from anger,

insult and exertion that it seemed about to burst through her

basque. She tried to draw deep breaths but Mammy's lacings were

too tight. If she should faint and they should find her here on

the landing, what would they think? Oh, they'd think everything.

Ashley and that vile Butler man and those nasty girls who were so

jealous! For once in her life, she wished that she carried

smelling salts, like the other girls, but she had never even owned

a vinaigrette. She had always been so proud of never feeling

giddy. She simply could not let herself faint now!

Gradually the sickening feeling began to depart. In a minute,

she'd feel all right and then she'd slip quietly into the little

dressing room adjoining India's room, unloose her stays and creep