“No, I can’t say I did. Most unexpected and it’s to your credit, considering your passion for white trash, that you could appreciate her at last.”
“How can you talk so? Of course I appreciated her! You didn’t. You didn’t know her like I did! It isn’t in you to understand her—how good she was—”
“Indeed? Perhaps not.”
“She thought of everybody except herself—why, her last words were about you.”
There was a flash of genuine feeling in his eyes as he turned to her.
“What did she say?”
“Oh, not now, Rhett.”
“Tell me.”
His voice was cool but the hand he put on her wrist hurt. She did not want to tell, this was not the way she had intended to lead up to the subject of her love but his hand was urgent.
“She said—she said— ‘Be kind to Captain Butler. He loves you so much.’ ”
He stared at her and dropped her wrist. His eyelids went down, leaving his face dark and blank. Suddenly he rose and going to the window, he drew the curtains and looked out intently as if there were something to see outside except blinding mist.
“Did she say anything else?” he questioned, not turning his head.
“She asked me to take care of little Beau and I said I would, like he was my own boy.”
“What else?”
“She said—Ashley—she asked me to look after Ashley, too.”
He was silent for a moment and then he laughed softly.
“It’s convenient to have the first wife’s permission, isn’t it?”
“What do you mean?”
He turned and even in her confusion she was surprised that there was no mockery in his face. Nor was there any more interest in it than in the face of a man watching the last act of a none-too-amusing comedy.
“I think my meaning’s plain enough. Miss Melly is dead. You certainly have all the evidence you want to divorce me and you haven’t enough reputation left for a divorce to hurt you. And you haven’t any religion left, so the Church won’t matter. Then—Ashley and dreams come true with the blessings of Miss Melly.”
“Divorce?” she cried. “No! No!” Incoherent for a moment she leaped to her feet and running to him caught his arm. “Oh, you’re all wrong! Terribly wrong. I don’t want a divorce— I—” She stopped for she could find no other words.
PR
