She looked up quickly to see if there was a jeer behind those words but there was none. He was simply stating a fact. But it was a fact she still would not believe-- could not believe. She looked at him with slanting eyes that burned with a desperate obstinacy and the sudden hard line of jaw that sprang out through her soft cheek was Gerald's jaw.
"Don't be a fool, Rhett! I can make-- "
He flung up a hand in mock horror and his black brows went up in the old sardonic crescents.
"Don't look so determined, Scarlett! You frighten me. I see you are contemplating the transfer of your tempestuous affections from Ashley to me and I fear for my liberty and my peace of mind. No, Scarlett, I will not be pursued as the luckless Ashley was pursued. Besides, I am going away."
Her jaw trembled before she clenched her teeth to steady it. Go away? No, anything but that! How could life go on without him? Everyone had gone from her, everyone who mattered except Rhett. He couldn't go. But how could she stop him? She was powerless against his cool mind, his disinterested words.
"I am going away. I intended to tell you when you came home from Marietta."
"You are deserting me?"
"Don't be the neglected, dramatic wife, Scarlett. The role isn't becoming. I take it, then, you do not want a divorce or even a separation? Well, then, I'll come back often enough to keep gossip down."
"Damn gossip!" she said fiercely. "It's you I want. Take me with you!"
"No," he said, and there was finality in his voice. For a moment she was on the verge of an outburst of childish wild tears. She could have thrown herself on the floor, cursed and screamed and drummed her heels. But some remnant of pride, of common sense stiffened her. She thought, if I did, he'd only laugh, or just look at me. I mustn't bawl; I mustn't beg. I mustn't do anything to risk his contempt. He must respect me even-- even if he doesn't love me.
She lifted her chin and managed to ask quietly:
"Where will you go?"
There was a faint gleam of admiration in his eyes as he answered.
"Perhaps to England-- or to Paris. Perhaps to Charleston to try to make peace with my people."
"But you hate them! I've heard you laugh at them so often and--"
He shrugged.
"I still laugh-- but I've reached the end of roaming, Scarlett I'm forty-five -- the age when a man begins to value some of the things he's thrown away so lightly in youth, the clannishness of families, honor and security, roots that go deep -- Oh, not I'm not recanting, I'm not regretting anything I've ever done. I've had a hell of a good time -- such a hell of a good time that it's begun to pall and now I want something different. No, I never intend to change more than my spots. But I want the outer semblance of the things I used to know, the utter boredom of respectability -- other people's respectability, my pet, not my own -- the calm dignity life can have when it's lived by gentle folks, the genial grace of days that are gone. When I lived those days I didn't realize the slow charm of them--"
Again Scarlett was back in the windy orchard of Tara and there was the same look in Rhett's eyes that had been in Ashley's eyes that day. Ashley's words were as clear in her ears as though he and not Rhett were speaking. Fragments of words came back to her and she quoted parrot-like: "A glamour to it-- a perfection, a symmetry like Grecian art."
Rhett said sharply: "Why did you say that? That's what I meant."
"It was something that-- that Ashley said once, about the old days."
He shrugged and the light went out of his eyes.
"Always Ashley," he said and was silent for a moment.
"Scarlett, when you are forty-five, perhaps you will know what I'm talking about and then perhaps you, too, will be tired of imitation gentry and shoddy manners and cheap emotions. But I doubt it. I think you'll always be more attracted by glister than by gold. Anyway, I can't wait that long to see. And I have no desire to wait. It just doesn't interest me. I'm going to hunt in old towns and old countries where some of the old times must still linger. I'm that sentimental. Atlanta's too raw for me, too new."
"Stop," she said suddenly. She had hardly heard anything he had said. Certainly her mind had not taken it in. But she knew she could no longer endure with any fortitude the sound of his voice when there was no love in it
He paused and looked at her quizzically.
"Well, you get my meaning, don't you?" he questioned, rising to his feet.
She threw out her hands to him, palms up, in the age-old gesture of appeal and her heart, again, was in her face.
"No," she cried. "All I know is that you do not love me and you are going away! Oh, my darling, if you go, what shall I do?"
For a moment he hesitated as if debating whether a kind lie were kinder in the long run than the truth. Then he shrugged.
"Scarlett, I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken-- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived. Perhaps, if I were younger --" he sighed. "But I'm too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over. I'm too old to shoulder the burden of constant lies that go with living in polite disillusionment. I couldn't live with you and lie to you and I certainly couldn't lie to myself. I can't even lie to you now. I wish I could care what you do or where you go, but I can't."