She rose to her feet, her hand still in his. She must go. She could not stay and think of the old days and see his face, tired and sad and bleak as it now was.
“ We’ve come a long way since those days, Ashley,” she said, trying to steady her voice, trying to fight the constriction in her throat. “We had fine notions then, didn’t we?” And then, with a rush, “Oh, Ashley, nothing has turned out as we expected!”
“ It never does,” he said. “Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”
Her heart was suddenly dull with pain, with weariness, as she thought of the long road she had come since those days. There rose up in her mind the memory of Scarlett O’Hara who loved beaux and pretty dresses and who intended, some day,
