He had been sad after the surrender, sad when she begged him to come to Atlanta.
Now, he was only resigned.
"I hate to hear you talk like that, Ashley," she said vehemently.
"You sound just like Rhett.
He's always harping on things like that and something he calls the survival of the fitting till I'm so bored I could scream."
Ashley smiled.
"Did you ever stop to think, Scarlett, that Rhett and I are fundamentally alike?"
"Oh, no!
You are so fine, so honorable and he--" She broke off, confused.
"But we are.
We came of the same kind of people, we were raised in the same pattern, brought up to think the same things.
And somewhere along the road we took different turnings.
We still think alike but we react differently.
As, for instance, neither of us believed in the war but I enlisted and fought and he stayed out till nearly the end.
We both knew the war was all wrong.
We both knew it was a losing fight.
I was willing to fight a losing fight.
He wasn't.
Sometimes I think he was right and then, again--"
"Oh, Ashley, when will you stop seeing both sides of questions?" she asked.
But she did not speak impatiently as she once would have done.
"No one ever gets anywhere seeing both sides."
"That's true but--Scarlett, just where do you want to get?
I've often wondered.
You see, I never wanted to get anywhere at all.
I've only wanted to be myself."
Where did she want to get?
That was a silly question.
Money and security, of course.
And yet-- Her mind fumbled.
She had money and as much security as one could hope for in an insecure world.
But, now that she thought about it, they weren't quite enough. Now that she thought about it, they hadn't made her particularly happy, though they made her less harried, less fearful of the morrow.
If I'd had money and security and you, that would have been where I wanted to get, she thought, looking at him yearningly.
But she did not speak the words, fearful of breaking the spell that lay between them, fearful that his mind would close against her.
"You only want to be yourself?" she laughed, a little ruefully.
"Not being myself has always been my hardest trouble!
As to where I want to get, well, I guess I've gotten there.
I wanted to be rich and safe and--"
"But, Scarlett, did it ever occur to you that I don't care whether I'm rich or not?"
No, it had never occurred to her that anyone would not want to be rich.
"Then, what do you want?"
"I don't know, now.
I knew once but I've half forgotten.
Mostly to be left alone, not to be harried by people I don't like, driven to do things I don't want to do.
Perhaps--I want the old days back again and they'll never come back, and I am haunted by the memory of them and of the world falling about my ears."
Scarlett set her mouth obstinately.
It was not that she did not know what he meant.
The very tones of his voice called up other days as nothing else could, made her heart hurt suddenly, as she too remembered.
But since the day she had lain sick and desolate in the garden at Twelve Oaks and said:
"I won't look back," she had set her face against the past.