how you do run on

----------------------- [excerpt, Gone With The Wind] ---------------------------------

     "How you do run on," she said coldly, for there was no insult worse than being likened to a Yankee girl.  "I believe you're lying about a siege.  You know the Yankees will never get to Atlanta."

     "I'll bet you they will be here within the month.  I'll bet you a box of bonbons against--"  His dark eyes wandered to her lips.  "Against a kiss."

     For a last brief moment, fear of a Yankee invasion clutched her heart but at the word "kiss," she forgot about it.  This was familiar ground and far more interesting than military operations.  With difficulty she restrained a smile of glee.  

Since the day when he gave her the green bonnet, Rhett had made no advances which could in any way be construed as those of a lover.  He could never be inveigled into personal conversations, try though she might, but now with no angling on her part, he was talking about kissing.

     "I don't care for such personal conversation," she said coolly and managed a frown.  "Besides, I'd just as soon kiss a pig."

     "There's no accounting for tastes and I've always heard the Irish were partial to pigs -- kept them under their beds, in fact.  But, Scarlett, you need kissing badly.  That's what's wrong with you.  All your beaux have respected you too much, though God knows why, or they have been too afraid of you to really do right by you.  The result is that you are unendurably uppity.  You should be kissed and by someone who knows how."

     The conversation was not going the way she wanted it.  It never did when she was with him.  Always, it was a duel....

-30-