As she sank to the bed in weak thankfulness, Rhett entered the room.
He was freshly barbered, shaved and massaged and he was sober, but his eyes were bloodshot and his face puffy from drink.
He waved an airy hand at her and said:
"Oh, hello."
How could a man say
"Oh, hello," after being gone without explanation for two days?
How could he be so nonchalant with the memory of such a night as they had spent?
He couldn't unless-- unless--the terrible thought leaped into her mind. Unless such nights were the usual thing to him.
For a moment she could not speak and all the pretty gestures and smiles she had thought to use upon him were forgotten.
He did not even come to her to give her his usual offhand kiss but stood looking at her, with a grin, a smoking cigar in his hand.
"Where--where have you been?"
"Don't tell me you don't know!
I thought surely the whole town knew by now.
Perhaps they all do, except you.
You know the old adage:
'The wife is always the last one to find out.'"
"What do you mean?"
"I thought that after the police called at Belle's night before last--"
"Belle's--that--that woman!
You have been with--"
"Of course.
Where else would I be?
I hope you haven't worried about me."
"You went from me to--oh!"
"Come, come, Scarlett!
Don't play the deceived wife.
You must have known about Belle long ago."
"You went to her from me, after--after--"
"Oh, that."
He made a careless gesture.
"I will forget my manners.
My apologies for my conduct at our last meeting.
I was very drunk, as you doubtless know, and quite swept off my feet by your charms--need I enumerate them?"
Suddenly she wanted to cry, to lie down on the bed and sob endlessly.
He hadn't changed, nothing had changed, and she had been a fool, a stupid, conceited, silly fool, thinking he loved her.
It had all been one of his repulsive drunken jests.
He had taken her and used her when he was drunk, just as he would use any woman in Belle's house.
And now he was back, insulting, sardonic, out of reach.
She swallowed her tears and rallied.
He must never, never know what she had thought.
How he would laugh if he knew!
Well, he'd never know.
She looked up quickly at him and caught that old, puzzling, watchful glint in his eyes--keen, eager as though he hung on her next words, hoping they would be--what was he hoping?
That she'd make a fool out of herself and bawl and give him something to laugh about?
Not she!
Her slanting brows rushed together in a cold frown.
"I had naturally suspected what your relations with that creature were."
"Only suspected?
Why didn't you ask me and satisfy your curiosity?
I'd have told you.