Frank was not only amazed at his wife's views and her plans but at the change which had come over her in the few months since their marriage.
This wasn't the soft, sweet, feminine person he had taken to wife.
In the brief period of the courtship, he thought he had never known a woman more attractively feminine in her reactions to life, ignorant, timid and helpless.
Now her reactions were all masculine.
Despite her pink cheeks and dimples and pretty smiles, she talked and acted like a man.
Her voice was brisk and decisive and she made up her mind instantly and with no girlish shilly- shallying.
She knew what she wanted and she went after it by the shortest route, like a man, not by the hidden and circuitous routes peculiar to women.
It was not that Frank had never seen commanding women before this.
Atlanta, like all Southern towns, had its share of dowagers whom no one cared to cross.
No one could be more dominating than stout Mrs. Merriwether, more imperious than frail Mrs. Elsing, more artful in securing her own ends than the silver-haired sweet-voiced Mrs. Whiting.
But no matter what devices these ladies employed in order to get their own way, they were always feminine devices.
They made a point of being deferential to men's opinions, whether they were guided by them or not.
They had the politeness to appear to be guided by what men said, and that was what mattered.
But Scarlett was guided by no one but herself and was conducting her affairs in a masculine way which had the whole town talking about her.
"And," thought Frank miserably, "probably talking about me too, for letting her act so unwomanly."
Then, there was that Butler man.
His frequent calls at Aunt Pitty's house were the greatest humiliation of all.
Frank had always disliked him, even when he had done business with him before the war.
He often cursed the day he had brought Rhett to Twelve Oaks and introduced him to his friends.
He despised him for the cold-blooded way he had acted in his speculations during the war and for the fact that he had not been in the army.
Rhett's eight months' service with the Confederacy was known only to Scarlett, for Rhett had begged her, with mock fear, not to reveal his "shame" to anyone.
Most of all Frank had contempt for him for holding on to the Confederate gold, when honest men like Admiral Bulloch and others confronted with the same situation had turned back thousands to the Federal treasury.
But whether Frank liked it or not, Rhett was a frequent caller.
Ostensibly it was Miss Pitty he came to see and she had no better sense than to believe it and give herself airs over his visits.
But Frank had an uncomfortable feeling that Miss Pitty was not the attraction which brought him.
Little Wade was very fond of him, though the boy was shy of most people, and even called him "Uncle Rhett," which annoyed Frank.
And Frank could not help remembering that Rhett had squired Scarlett about during the war days and there had been talk about them then.
He imagined there might be even worse talk about them now.
None of his friends had the courage to mention anything of this sort to Frank, for all their outspoken words on Scarlett's conduct in the matter of the mill.
But he could not help noticing that he and Scarlett were less frequently invited to meals and parties and fewer and fewer people came to call on them.
Scarlett disliked most of her neighbors and was too busy with her mill to care about seeing the ones she did like, so the lack of calls did not disturb her.
But Frank felt it keenly.
All of his life, Frank had been under the domination of the phrase "What will the neighbors say?" and he was defenseless against the shocks of his wife's repeated disregard of the proprieties.
He felt that everyone disapproved of Scarlett and was contemptuous of him for permitting her to "unsex herself."
She did so many things a husband should not permit, according to his views, but if he ordered her to stop them, argued or even criticized, a storm broke on his head.
"My! My!" he thought helplessly.
"She can get mad quicker and stay mad longer than any woman I ever saw!"
Even at the times when things were most pleasant, it was amazing how completely and how quickly the teasing, affectionate wife who hummed to herself as she went about the house could be transformed into an entirely different person.
He had only to say:
"Sugar, if I were you, I wouldn't--" and the tempest would break.
Her black brows rushed together to meet in a sharp angle over her nose and Frank cowered, almost visibly.
She had the temper of a Tartar and the rages of a wild cat and, at such times, she did not seem to care what she said or how much it hurt.
Clouds of gloom hung over the house on such occasions.
Frank went early to the store and stayed late.
Pitty scrambled into her bedroom like a rabbit panting for its burrow.
Wade and Uncle Peter retired to the carriage house and Cookie kept to her kitchen and forebore to raise her voice to praise the Lord in song.
Only Mammy endured Scarlett's temper with equanimity and Mammy had had many years of training with Gerald O'Hara and his explosions.
Scarlett did not mean to be short tempered and she really wanted to make Frank a good wife, for she was fond of him and grateful for his help in saving Tara.
But he did try her patience to the breaking point so often and in so many different ways.
She could never respect a man who let her run over him and the timid, hesitant attitude he displayed in any unpleasant situation, with her or with others, irritated her unbearably.