Why did you lie to me about everything being nice at Tara?"
"Now, Rhett--"
"Suppose we get down to the truth.
What is the real purpose of your visit?
Almost, I was persuaded by your coquettish airs that you cared something about me and were sorry for me."
"Oh, I am sorry!
Indeed--"
"No, you aren't.
They can hang me higher than Haman for all you care.
It's written as plainly on your face as hard work is written on your hands.
You wanted something from me and you wanted it badly enough to put on quite a show.
Why didn't you come out in the open and tell me what it was?
You'd have stood a much better chance of getting it, for if there's one virtue I value in women it's frankness.
But no, you had to come jingling your earbobs and pouting and frisking like a prostitute with a prospective client."
He did not raise his voice at the last words or emphasize them in any way but to Scarlett they cracked like a whiplash, and with despair she saw the end of her hopes of getting him to propose marriage.
Had he exploded with rage and injured vanity or upbraided her, as other men would have done, she could have handled him.
But the deadly quietness of his voice frightened her, left her utterly at a loss as to her next move.
Although he was a prisoner and the Yankees were in the next room, it came to her suddenly that Rhett Butler was a dangerous man to run afoul of.
"I suppose my memory is getting faulty.
I should have recalled that you are just like me and that you never do anything without an ulterior motive.
Now, let me see. What could you have had up your sleeve, Mrs. Hamilton?
It isn't possible that you were so misguided as to think I would propose matrimony?"
Her face went crimson and she did not answer.
"But you can't have forgotten my oft-repeated remark that I am not a marrying man?"
When she did not speak, he said with sudden violence:
"You hadn't forgotten?
Answer me."
"I hadn't forgotten," she said wretchedly.
"What a gambler you are, Scarlett," he jeered.
"You took a chance that my incarceration away from female companionship would put me in such a state I'd snap at you like a trout at a worm."
And that's what you did, thought Scarlett with inward rage, and if it hadn't been for my hands--
"Now, we have most of the truth, everything except your reason.
See if you can tell me the truth about why you wanted to lead me into wedlock."
There was a suave, almost teasing note in his voice and she took heart.
Perhaps everything wasn't lost, after all.
Of course, she had ruined any hope of marriage but, even in her despair, she was glad.
There was something about this immobile man which frightened her, so that now the thought of marrying him was fearful.
But perhaps if she was clever and played on his sympathies and his memories, she could secure a loan.
She pulled her face into a placating and childlike expression.
"Oh, Rhett, you can help me so much--if you'll just be sweet."
"There's nothing I like better than being--sweet."
"Rhett, for old friendship's sake, I want you to do me a favor."
"So, at last the horny-handed lady comes to her real mission.
I feared that 'visiting the sick and the imprisoned' was not your proper role.
What do you want?
Money?"
The bluntness of his question ruined all hopes of leading up to the matter in any circuitous and sentimental way.
"Don't be mean, Rhett," she coaxed.
"I do want some money.
I want you to lend me three hundred dollars."