It's better so, Scarlett.
I'd be no good to you.
I know nothing of the lumber business."
"But you know less about banking and it's much harder!
And I know I'd make far more allowances for your inexperience than Yankees would!"
He winced and she knew she had said the wrong thing.
He turned and looked out of the window again.
"I don't want allowances made for me.
I want to stand on my own feet for what I'm worth.
What have I done with my life, up till now?
It's time I made something of myself--or went down through my own fault.
I've been your pensioner too long already."
"But I'm offering you a half-interest in the mill, Ashley!
You would be standing on your own feet because--you see, it would be your own business."
"It would amount to the same thing.
I'd not be buying the half- interest.
I'd be taking it as a gift.
And I've taken too many gifts from you already, Scarlett--food and shelter and even clothes for myself and Melanie and the baby.
And I've given you nothing in return."
"Oh, but you have!
Will couldn't have--"
"I can split kindling very nicely now."
"Oh, Ashley!" she cried despairingly, tears in her eyes at the jeering note in his voice.
"What has happened to you since I've been gone?
You sound so hard and bitter!
You didn't used to be this way."
"What's happened?
A very remarkable thing, Scarlett.
I've been thinking.
I don't believe I really thought from the time of the surrender until you went away from here.
I was in a state of suspended animation and it was enough that I had something to eat and a bed to lie on.
But when you went to Atlanta, shouldering a man's burden, I saw myself as much less than a man--much less, indeed, than a woman.
Such thoughts aren't pleasant to live with and I do not intend to live with them any longer.
Other men came out of the war with less than I had, and look at them now.
So I'm going to New York."
"But--I don't understand!
If it's work you want, why won't Atlanta do as well as New York?
And my mill--"
"No, Scarlett.
This is my last chance.
I'll go North.
If I go to Atlanta and work for you, I'm lost forever."
The word "lost--lost--lost" dinged frighteningly in her heart like a death bell sounding.
Her eyes went quickly to his but they were wide and crystal gray and they were looking through her and beyond her at some fate she could not see, could not understand.
"Lost?
Do you mean--have you done something the Atlanta Yankees can get you for?
I mean, about helping Tony get away or--or-- Oh, Ashley, you aren't in the Ku Klux, are you?"
His remote eyes came back to her swiftly and he smiled a brief smile that never reached his eyes.
"I had forgotten you were so literal.
No, it's not the Yankees I'm afraid of.