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 glass--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 title to the name and place Sheila had usurped,
the new arrival was awed by the impostor's look.
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