Is Over" with an arch meaning Scarlett found well-nigh

unendurable, and Carreen was too wrapped up in dreams of Brent

Tarleton to be interesting company.

Though Scarlett always went home to Tara with a happy heart, she

was never sorry when the inevitable letters came from Pitty and

Melanie, begging her to return. Ellen always sighed at these

times, saddened by the thought of her oldest daughter and her only

grandchild leaving her.

"But I mustn't be selfish and keep you here when you are needed to

nurse in Atlanta," she said. "Only--only, my darling, it seems

that I never get the time to talk to you and to feel that you are

my own little girl again before you are gone from me."

"I'm always your little girl," Scarlett would say and bury her

head upon Ellen's breast, her guilt rising up to accuse her. She

did not tell her mother that it was the dancing and the beaux

which drew her back to Atlanta and not the service of the

Confederacy. There were many things she kept from her mother

these days. But, most of all, she kept secret the fact that Rhett

Butler called frequently at Aunt Pittypat's house.

During the months that followed the bazaar, Rhett called whenever

he was in town, taking Scarlett riding in his carriage, escorting

her to danceables and bazaars and waiting outside the hospital to

drive her home. She lost her fear of his betraying her secret,

but there always lurked in the back of her mind the disquieting

memory that he had seen her at her worst and knew the truth about

Ashley. It was this knowledge that checked her tongue when he

annoyed her. And he annoyed her frequently.

He was in his mid-thirties, older than any beau she had ever had,

and she was as helpless as a child to control and handle him as

she had handled beaux nearer her own age. He always looked as if

nothing had ever surprised him and much had amused him and, when

he had gotten her into a speechless temper, she felt that she

amused him more than anything in the world. Frequently she flared

into open wrath under his expert baiting, for she had Gerald's

Irish temper along with the deceptive sweetness of face she had

inherited from Ellen. Heretofore she had never bothered to

control her temper except in Ellen's presence. Now it was painful

to have to choke back words for fear of his amused grin. If only

he would ever lose his temper too, then she would not feel at such

a disadvantage.

After tilts with him from which she seldom emerged the victor she

vowed he was impossible, ill-bred and no gentleman and she would

have nothing more to do with him. But sooner or later, he

returned to Atlanta, called, presumably on Aunt Pitty, and

presented Scarlett, with overdone gallantry, a box of bonbons he

had brought her from Nassau. Or preempted a seat by her at a

musicale or claimed her at a dance, and she was usually so amused

by his bland impudence that she laughed and overlooked his past

misdeeds until the next occurred.

For all his exasperating qualities, she grew to look forward to

his calls. There was something exciting about him that she could

not analyze, something different from any man she had ever known.

There was something breathtaking in the grace of his big body

which made his very entrance into a room like an abrupt physical