Mammy bent a piercing look on her mistress.
Scarlett was speechless and quivering with insult.
"Ef you say you gwine mahy him, you gwine do it, 'cause you is bullhaided lak yo' pa.
But 'member dis, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain' leavin' you.
Ah gwine stay right hyah an' see dis ting thoo."
Without waiting for a reply, Mammy turned and left Scarlett and if she had said:
"Thou shalt see me at Philippi!" her tones would not have been more ominous.
While they were honeymooning in New Orleans Scarlett told Rhett of Mammy's words.
To her surprise and indignation he laughed at Mammy's statement about mules in horse harness.
"I have never heard a profound truth expressed so succinctly," he said.
"Mammy's a smart old soul and one of the few people I know whose respect and good will I'd like to have.
But, being a mule, I suppose I'll never get either from her.
She even refused the ten- dollar gold piece which I, in my groomlike fervor, wished to present her after the wedding.
I've seen so few people who did not melt at the sight of cash.
But she looked me in the eye and thanked me and said she wasn't a free issue nigger and didn't need my money."
"Why should she take on so?
Why should everybody gabble about me like a bunch of guinea hens?
It's my own affair whom I marry and how often I marry.
I've always minded my own business.
Why don't other people mind theirs?"
"My pet, the world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own business.
But why should you squall like a scalded cat?
You've said often enough that you didn't mind what people said about you.
Why not prove it?
You know you've laid yourself open to criticism so often in small matters, you can't expect to escape gossip in this large matter.
You knew there'd be talk if you married a villain like me.
If I were a low-bred poverty-stricken villain, people wouldn't be so mad.
But a rich, flourishing villain--of course, that's unforgivable."
"I wish you'd be serious sometimes!"
"I am serious.
It's always annoying to the godly when the ungodly flourish like the green bay tree.
Cheer up, Scarlett, didn't you tell me once that the main reason you wanted a lot of money was so you could tell everybody to go to hell?
Now's your chance."
"But you were the main one I wanted to tell to go to hell," said Scarlett, and laughed.
"Do you still want to tell me to go to hell?"
"Well, not as often as I used to."
"Do it whenever you like, if it makes you happy."
"It doesn't make me especially happy," said Scarlett and, bending, she kissed him carelessly.
His dark eyes flickered quickly over her face, hunting for something in her eyes which he did not find, and he laughed shortly.
"Forget about Atlanta.
Forget about the old cats.
I brought you to New Orleans to have fun and I intend that you shall have it."
Part Five
CHAPTER XLVIII
She did have fun, more fun than she had had since the spring before the war.
New Orleans was such a strange, glamorous place and Scarlett enjoyed it with the headlong pleasure of a pardoned life prisoner.
The Carpetbaggers were looting the town, many honest folk were driven from their homes and did not know where to look for their next meal, and a negro sat in the lieutenant governor's chair.
But the New Orleans Rhett showed her was the gayest place she had ever seen.
The people she met seemed to have all the money they wanted and no cares at all.
Rhett introduced her to dozens of women, pretty women in bright gowns, women who had soft hands that showed no signs of hard work, women who laughed at everything and never talked of stupid serious things or hard times.