If you’d had any raising at all you’d never have come over here and talked to me.
You’d have known I never wanted to lay eyes on you again!
But you aren’t a gentleman!
You are just a nasty ill-bred creature!
And you think that because your rotten little boats can outrun the Yankees, you’ve the right to come here and jeer at men who are brave and women who are sacrificing everything for the Cause—”
“Stop, stop—” he begged with a grin. “You started off very nicely and said what you thought, but don’t begin talking to me about the Cause.
I’m tired of hearing about it and I’ll bet you are, too—”
“Why, how did—” she began, caught off her balance, and then checked herself hastily, boiling with anger at herself for falling into his trap.
“I stood there in the doorway before you saw me and I watched you,” he said. “And I watched the other girls.
And they all looked as though their faces came out of one mold.
Yours didn’t.
You have an easy face to read.
You didn’t have your mind on your business and I’ll wager you weren’t thinking about our Cause or the hospital.
It was all over your face that you wanted to dance and have a good time and you couldn’t.
So you were mad clean through.
Tell the truth. Am I not right?”
“I have nothing more to say to you, Captain Butler,” she said as formally as she could, trying to draw the rags of her dignity about her.
“Just because you’re conceited at being the ‘great blockader’ doesn’t give you the right to insult women.”
“The great blockader!
That’s a joke.
Pray give me only one moment more of your precious time before you cast me into darkness.
I wouldn’t want so charming a little patriot to be left under a misapprehension about my contribution to the Confederate Cause.”
“I don’t care to listen to your brags.”
“Blockading is a business with me and I’m making money out of it.
When I stop making money out of it, I’ll quit.
What do you think of that?”
“I think you’re a mercenary rascal—just like the Yankees.”
“Exactly,” he grinned.
“And the Yankees help me make my money.
Why, last month I sailed my boat right into New York harbor and took on a cargo.”
“What!” cried Scarlett, interested and excited in spite of herself.
“Didn’t they shell you?”
“My poor innocent!
Of course not.
There are plenty of sturdy Union patriots who are not averse to picking up money selling goods to the Confederacy.
I run my boat into New York, buy from Yankee firms, sub rosa, of course, and away I go.
And when that gets a bit dangerous, I go to Nassau where these same Union patriots have brought powder and shells and hoop skirts for me.
It’s more convenient than going to England.
Sometimes it’s a bit difficult running it into Charleston or Wilmington—but you’d be surprised how far a little gold goes.”
“Oh, I knew Yankees were vile but I didn’t know—”
“Why quibble about the Yankees earning an honest penny selling out the Union?
It won’t matter in a hundred years.
The result will be the same.
They know the Confederacy will be licked eventually, so why shouldn’t they cash in on it?”
“Licked—us?”
“Of course.”
“Will you please leave me—or will it be necessary for me to call my carriage and go home to get rid of you?”
“A red-hot little Rebel,” he said, with another sudden grin. He bowed and sauntered off, leaving her with her bosom heaving with impotent rage and indignation.
There was disappointment burning in her that she could not quite analyze, the disappointment of a child seeing illusions crumble.
How dared he take the glamor from the blockaders!