In the days that followed, Tara might have been Crusoe’s desert island, so still it was, so isolated from the rest of the world. The world lay only a few miles away, but a thousand miles of tumbling waves might have stretched between Tara and Jonesboro and Fayetteville and Lovejoy, even between Tara and
As she chattered and laughed and cast quick glances into the house and the yard, her eyes fell on a stranger, standing alone in the hall, staring at her in a cool impertinent way that brought her up sharply with a mingled feeling of feminine pleasure that she had attracted a man and an embarrassed sensation that her dress was too low in the bosom. He looked quite old, at least thirty-five. He was a tall man and powerfully built. Scarlett thought she had never seen a man with such wide shoulders, so heavy with muscles, almost too heavy for gentility. When her eye caught his, he smiled, showing animal-white teeth below a close-clipped black mustache. He was dark of face, swarthy as a pirate, and his eyes were as bold and black as any pirate’s appraising a galleon to be scuttled or a maiden to be ravished. There was a cool recklessness in his face and a cynical humor in his mouth as he smiled at her, and Scarlett caught her breath. She felt that she should be insulted by such a look and was annoyed with herself because she did not feel insulted. She did not know who he could be, but there was undeniably a look of good blood in his dark face. It showed in the thin hawk nose over the full red lips, the high forehead and the wide-set eyes. She dragged her eyes away from his without smiling back, and he turned as someone called: “Rhett! Rhett Butler! Come here! I want you to meet the most hardhearted girl in Georgia.”
Oh, I couldn’t take off mourning—Captain Butler, you must not hold me so tightly. I’ll be mad at you if you do.” “And you look gorgeous when you are mad. I’ll squeeze you again—there—just to see if you will really get mad. You have no idea how charming you were that day at Twelve Oaks when you were mad and throwing things.” “Oh, please—w
You could have refused.” “But—I owe it to the Cause—I—I couldn’t think of myself when you were offering so much in gold. Stop laughing, everyone is looking at us.” “They will look at us anyway. Don’t try to palm off that twaddle about the Cause to me. You wanted to dance and I gave you the opportunity. This march is the last figure of the reel, isn’t it?” “Yes—really, I must stop and sit down now.” “Why? Have I stepped on your feet?” “No—but they’ll talk about me.” “Do you really care—down in your heart?” “Well—”
