"Who are you hiding from -- Charles or the Tarletons?"
She gulped. So he had noticed how the men had swarmed about her! How unutterably dear he was standing there with his eyes twinkling, all unaware of her excitement. She could not speak, but she put out a hand and drew him into the room. He entered, puzzled but interested. There was a tenseness about her, a glow in her eyes that he had never seen before, and even in the dim light he could see the rosy flush on her cheeks. Automatically be closed the door behind him and took her hand.
"What is it?" he said, almost in a whisper.
At the touch of his hand, she began to tremble. It was going to happen now, just as she had dreamed it. A thousand incoherent thoughts shot through her mind, and she could not catch a single one to mold into a word. She could only shake and look up into his face. Why didn't he speak?
"What is it?" he repeated. "A secret to tell me?"
Suddenly she found her tongue and just as suddenly all the years of Ellen's teachings fell away, and the forthright Irish blood of Gerald spoke from his daughter's lips.
"Yes -- a secret I love you."
For an instance there was a silence so acute it seemed that neither of them even breathed. Then the trembling fell away from her, as happiness and pride surged through her. Why hadn't she done this before? How much simpler than all the ladylike maneuverings she had been taught. And then her eyes sought his.
There was a look of consternation in them, of incredulity and something more -- what was it? Yes, Gerald had looked that way the day his pet hunter had broken his leg and he had had to shoot him. Why did she have to think of that now? Such a silly thought. And why did Ashley look so oddly and say nothing? Then something like a well-trained mask came down over his face and he smiled gallantly.
"Isn't it enough that you've collected every other man's heart here today?" he said, with the old, teasing, caressing note in his voice. "Do you want to make it unanimous? Well, you've always had my heart, you know. You cut your teeth on it."
Something was wrong -- all wrong! This was not the way she had planned it. Through the mad tearing of ideas round and round in her brain, one was beginning to take form. Somehow -- for some reason -- Ashley was acting as if he thought she was just flirting with him. But he knew differently. She knew he did.
"Ashley -- Ashley -- tell me -- you must -- oh, don't tease me now! Have I your heart? Oh, my dear, I lo --"
His hand went across her lips, swiftly. The mask was gone.
"You must not say these things, Scarlett! You mustn't. You don't mean them. You'll hate yourself for saying them, and you'll hate me for hearing them!"
She jerked her head away. A hot swift current was running through her.
"I couldn't ever hate you. I tell you I love you and I know you must care about me because --" She stopped. Never before had she seen so much misery in anyone's face. "Ashley, do you care -- you do, don't you?"
"Yes," he said dully. "I care."
If he had said he loathed her, she could not have been more frightened. She plucked at his sleeve, speechless.
"Scarlett," he said, "can't we go away and forget that we have ever said these things?"
"No," she whispered. "I can't. What do you mean? Don't you want to -- to marry me?"
He replied, I'm going to marry Melanie."
Somehow she found that she was sitting on the low velvet chair and Ashley, on the hassock at her feet, was holding both her hands in his, in a hard grip. He was saying things -- things that made no sense. Her mind was quite blank, quite empty of all the thoughts that had surged throu
gh it only a moment before, and his words made no more impression than rain on glass. They fell on unhearing ears, words that were swift and tender and full of pity, like a father speaking to a hurt child.
The sound of Melanie's name caught in her consciousness and she looked into his crystal-gray eyes. She saw in them the old remoteness that had always baffled her -- and a look of self-hatred.
"Father is to announce the engagement tonight. We are to be married soon. I should have told you, but I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew -- had known for years. I never dreamed that you -- You've so many beaux. I thought Stuart --"
Life and feeling and comprehension were beginning to flow back into her.
"But you just said you cared for me."
His warm hands hurt hers.
"My dear, must you make me say things that will hurt you?"
Her silence pressed him on.