第96章

His black eyes sought her face and traveled to her lips. Scarlett cast down her eyes, excitement filling her. Now, he was going to try to take liberties, just as Ellen predicted. He was going to kiss her, or try to kiss her, and she couldn’t quite make up her flurried mind which it should be. If she refused, he might jerk the bonnet right off her head and give it to some other girl. On the other hand, if she permitted one chaste peck, he might bring her other lovely presents in the hope of getting another kiss. Men set such a store by kisses, though Heaven alone knew why. And lots of times, after one kiss they fell completely in love with a girl and made most entertaining spectacles of themselves, provided the girl was clever and withheld her kisses after the first one. It would be exciting to have Rhett Butler in love with her and admitting it and begging for a kiss or a smile. Yes, she would let him kiss her.

But he made no move to kiss her. She gave him a sidelong glance from under her lashes and murmured encouragingly.

“So you always get paid, do you? And what do you expect to get from me?”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Well, if you think I’ll marry you to pay for the bonnet, I won’t,” she said daringly and gave her head a saucy flirt that set the plume to bobbing.

His white teeth gleamed under his little mustache.

“Madam, you flatter yourself, I do not want to marry you or anyone else. I am not a marrying man.”

“Indeed!” she cried, taken aback and now determined that he should take some liberty. “I don’t even intend to kiss you, either.”

“Then why is your mouth all pursed up in that ridiculous way?”

“Oh!” she cried as she caught a glimpse of herself and saw that her red lips were indeed in the proper pose for a kiss. “Oh!” she cried again, losing her temper and stamping her foot. “You are the horridest man I have ever seen and I don’t care if I never lay eyes on you again!”

“If you really felt that way, you’d stamp on the bonnet. My, what a passion you are in and it’s quite becoming, as you probably know. Come, Scarlett, stamp on the bonnet to show me what you think of me and my presents.”

“Don’t you dare touch this bonnet,” she said, clutching it by the bow and retreating. He came after her, laughing softly and took her hands in his.

“Oh, Scarlett, you are so young you wring my heart,” he said. “And I shall kiss you, as you seem to expect it,” and leaning down carelessly, his mustache just grazed her cheek. “Now, do you feel that you must slap me to preserve the proprieties?”

Her lips mutinous, she looked up into his eyes and saw so much amusement in their dark depths that she burst into laughter. What a tease he was and how exasperating! If he didn’t want to marry her and didn’t even want to kiss her, what did he want? If he wasn’t in love with her, why did he call so often and bring her presents?

“That’s better, he said. “Scarlett, I’m a bad influence on you and if you have any sense you will send me packing—if you can. I’m very hard to get rid of. But I’m bad for you.”

“Are you?”

“Can’t you see it? Ever since I met you at the bazaar, your career has been most shocking and I’m to blame for most of it. Who encouraged you to dance? Who forced you to admit that you thought our glorious Cause was neither glorious nor sacred? Who goaded you into admitting that you thought men were fools to die for high-sounding principles? Who has aided you in giving the old ladies plenty to gossip about? Who is getting you out of mourning several years too soon? And who, to end all this, has lured you into accepting a gift which no lady can accept and still remain a lady?”

“You flatter yourself, Captain Butler. I haven’t done anything so scandalous and I’d have done everything you mentioned without your aid anyway.”

“I doubt that,” he said and his face went suddenly quiet and somber. “You’d still be the broken-hearted widow of Charles Hamilton and famed for your good deeds among the wounded. Eventually, however—”

But she was not listening, for she was regarding herself pleasedly in the mirror again, thinking she would wear the bonnet to the hospital this very afternoon and take flowers to the convalescent officers.

That there was truth in his last words did not occur to her. She did not see that Rhett had pried open the prison of her widowhood and set her free to queen it over unmarried girls when her days as a belle should have been long past. Nor did she see that under his influence she had come a long way from Ellen’s teachings. The change had been so gradual, the flouting of one small convention seeming to have no connection with the flouting of another, and none of them any connection with Rhett. She did not realize that, with his encouragement, she had disregarded many of the sternest injunctions of her mother concerning the proprieties, forgotten the difficult lessons in being a lady.

She only saw that the bonnet was the most becoming one she ever had, that it had not cost her a penny and that Rhett must be in love with her, whether he admitted it or not. And she certainly intended to find a way to make him admit it.

The next day, Scarlett was standing in front of the mirror with a comb in her hand and her mouth full of hairpins, attempting a new coiffure which Maybelle, fresh from a visit to her husband in Richmond, had said was the rage at the Capital. It was called “Cats, Rats and Mice” and presented many difficulties. The hair was parted in the middle and arranged in three rolls of graduating size on each side of the head, the largest, nearest the part, being the “cat.” The “cat” and the “rat” were easy to fix but the “mice” kept slipping out of her hairpins in an exasperating manner. However, she was determined to accomplish it, for Rhett was coming to supper and he always noticed and commented upon any innovation of dress or hair.