Part 29 (1/2)
”Huh! Say, what's you name?”
”My name is Bostwick,” was the composed reply. ”You did not mention yours, did you?”
”_Bostwick?_”
”They call me Ida May Bostwick,” said Sheila, demurely smiling, and even then without a suspicion of the vortex into which she was being drawn.
”_Ida May Bostwick!_”
The visitor rose out of her seat as though a spring had been released under her. Her eyes flattened, distended, and sparked like micaceous rock in the dark. Her hands clenched till the pointed, highly polished nails bit into the palms.
”What do you say? _You_ are Ida May Bostwick?”
At that moment Sheila Macklin saw the light. It smote upon her brain like a shaft from a great searchlight; a penetrating, cleaving beam that might have laid bare her very soul before the accusing stranger. She staggered, retreating, shrinking, but only for a moment.
The pallor that had come into her face left it. Color rose softly under the exquisite skin and there came a haughty uplift of her chin. She stared back into the blazing, greenish-brown eyes of the other, her own eyes unafraid, challenging.
”Do you doubt me?” she demanded, with as much composure as though a secure position and a conscience quite at ease were hers. ”Who are you? In what way are you interested in my name or in my ident.i.ty?”
”Why, you--you--” The visitor was for the moment stricken speechless. But it was the speechlessness of rage--of wild and uncontrollable fury. Then she caught her breath. ”You dirty cheat, you! You stand there and tell me you are Ida Bostwick? You've got gall--you certainly _have_ got gall!
”I'd like to know who the devil you are? Comin' right here, wormin'
your way into a place that don't belong to you, gettin' on the soft side of my aunt an' uncle, I s'pose, and thinkin' to grab all they got when they die. Oh, I know _your_ kind, miss!
”But I'll show you up. I'll let 'em know what's what and who's who.
They must be precious soft to take a girl like you in and think she's Ida Bostwick. How _dare_ you?”
She stamped her foot. She advanced upon the other threateningly. But the girl she had accused did not retreat. The flush of outrage and that haughty expression were still upon her countenance. She spoke very firmly but in a voice so low that it contrasted the more sharply with the enraged squall of her opponent. She asked:
”Who are _you_, if you please?”
”You've cheek to ask me. I'd ought to spit on you, so I had! But I'll tell you who I am--and it'll hold you for a while, I guess. I am Ida May Bostwick. You know full and well you are makin' out to these rich relations of mine that you are me. I'll show you up, miss! I'll have you whipped--or jailed--or something. The gall of you!”
The other girl heard her with unchanging face. Somehow, that steady, unshrinking look gave Ida May Bostwick pause. It was she who recoiled.
CHAPTER XX
THE LIE
The girl who had seized upon the chance of becoming Ida May Bostwick, and so escaping the horror and despair that enshrouded Sheila Macklin like a filthy mantle, stood after the first blast as firm as a rock under the torrent of vituperation and rage which poured from the other girl's lips.
The real Ida May--weak, save in venomous hate, unstable as water, as shallow as a pool of gla.s.s--could have joined issue in a hair-pulling, face-scratching brawl. She was of that breed and up-bringing.
Sheila Macklin's very dignity held Ida May Bostwick at arm's length.
With all right and t.i.tle to the name and place Sheila had usurped, the new arrival was awed by the impostor's look. Following that first--and merely instantaneous--expression of horrified surprise at Ida May's announcement of her ident.i.ty, this girl, who was so secure in the confidence of the b.a.l.l.s and the community, proceeded to look down at the claimant of her achieved position with utter calmness.
It made the real Ida May almost afraid. Certain as she was of her own name and the a.s.sertion of her own personality, the bold and unshaken opposition confronting her in the very look of the impostor abashed Ida May Bostwick. After her first outbreak she was silenced.