They weren't even displaying common courtesy in denying her the relief of talking about it.
The events of the afternoon had shaken her more than she cared to admit, even to herself.
Every time she thought of that malignant black face peering at her from the shadows of the twilight forest road, she fell to trembling.
When she thought of the black hand at her bosom and what would have happened if Big Sam had not appeared, she bent her head lower and squeezed her eyes tightly shut.
The longer she sat silent in the peaceful room, trying to sew, listening to Melanie's voice, the tighter her nerves stretched.
She felt that at any moment she would actually hear them break with the same pinging sound a banjo string makes when it snaps.
Archie's whittling annoyed her and she frowned at him.
Suddenly it seemed odd that he should be sitting there occupying himself with a piece of wood.
Usually he lay flat on the sofa, during the evenings when he was on guard, and slept and snored so violently that his long beard leaped into the air with each rumbling breath.
It was odder still that neither Melanie nor India hinted to him that he should spread a paper on the floor to catch his litter of shavings.
He had already made a perfect mess on the hearth rug but they did not seem to have noticed it.
While she watched him, Archie turned suddenly toward the fire and spat a stream of tobacco juice on it with such vehemence that India, Melanie and Pitty leaped as though a bomb had exploded.
"NEED you expectorate so loudly?" cried India in a voice that cracked with nervous annoyance.
Scarlett looked at her in surprise for India was always so self-contained.
Archie gave her look for look.
"I reckon I do," he answered coldly and spat again.
Melanie gave a little frowning glance at India.
"I was always so glad dear Papa didn't chew," began Pitty, and Melanie, her frown creasing deeper, swung on her and spoke sharper words than Scarlett had ever heard her speak.
"Oh, do hush, Auntie!
You're so tactless."
"Oh, dear!"
Pitty dropped her sewing in her lap and her mouth pressed up in hurt.
"I declare, I don't know what ails you all tonight.
You and India are just as jumpy and cross as two old sticks."
No one answered her.
Melanie did not even apologize for her crossness but went back to her sewing with small violence.
"You're taking stitches an inch long," declared Pitty with some satisfaction.
"You'll have to take every one of them out.
What's the matter with you?"
But Melanie still did not answer.
Was there anything the matter with them, Scarlett wondered?
Had she been too absorbed with her own fears to notice?
Yes, despite Melanie's attempts to make the evening appear like any one of fifty they had all spent together, there was a difference due to their alarm and shock at what had happened that afternoon.
Scarlett stole glances at her companions and intercepted a look from India.
It discomforted her because it was a long, measuring glance that carried in its cold depths something stronger than hate, something more insulting than contempt.
"As though she thought I was to blame for what happened," Scarlett thought indignantly.
India turned from her to Archie and, all annoyance at him gone from her face, gave him a look of veiled anxious inquiry.
But he did not meet her eyes.
He did however look at Scarlett, staring at her in the same cold hard way India had done.
Silence fell dully in the room as Melanie did not take up the conversation again and, in the silence, Scarlett heard the rising wind outside.
It suddenly began to be a most unpleasant evening.
Now she began to feel the tension in the air and she wondered if it had been present all during the evening--and she too upset to notice it.
About Archie's face there was an alert waiting look and his tufted, hairy old ears seemed pricked up like a lynx's. There was a severely repressed uneasiness about Melanie and India that made them raise their heads from their sewing at each sound of hooves in the road, at each groan of bare branches under the wailing wind, at each scuffing sound of dry leaves tumbling across the lawn.
They started at each soft snap of burning logs on the hearth as if they were stealthy footsteps.
Something was wrong and Scarlett wondered what it was.
Something was afoot and she did not know about it.
A glance at Aunt Pitty's plump guileless face, screwed up in a pout, told her that the old lady was as ignorant as she.
But Archie and Melanie and India knew.
In the silence she could almost feel the thoughts of India and Melanie whirling as madly as squirrels in a cage.
They knew something, were waiting for something, despite their efforts to make things appear as usual.