Gone with the Wind. Маргарет Митчелл

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 was 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.