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Or, at least, she would make him, as well as the other girl, suffer for the slight he had put upon her. Had she not preened her feathers and strutted her very best on the occasion when he interviewed her at Hoskin & Marl's and taken her out to lunch? And to no end at all! He had been quite unimpressed by Ida May's airs and graces. Yet he would take up with this other girl a mere nobody.
So he went around to the street behind Hoskin & Marl's at the required time and spent five or ten minutes backed up against a blank wall under the sharp scrutiny of every girl who hurried out of the big store on her way to lunch. Ida May came, at last. Tunis Latham in his go-ashore uniform and cap was no unsightly figure. A stern tranquillity of countenance lent him dignity.
This girl who had usurped her name and identity had already succeeded in doing just that! The girl from Hoskin & Marl's halted, the wrathful flush came back into her pretty, insipid face, and she almost screamed: "What's got into you folks? Are you all crazy? Why, that fellow knows who I am well enough! I bet he brought that girl here himself and palmed her off on you."
"And I can't remember her name even now," went on Ida May, flashing a look at the Balls. Their pitiful appearance made no impression upon her. "But that don't matter. I guess they've got your record at Hoskin & Marl's. You worked there all right; sure you worked there, in the jewelry section. You stole something. I saw the store detective, Miss Hopwell, take you up to the manager's office.
But Cap'n Ira and Prudence listened with more of a puzzled expression in their countenances than anything else. It seemed altogether wild and improbable to them. Why! There sat Ida May before them. There could not be two Ida May Bostwicks! "Say!" exclaimed Cap'n Ira suddenly, after Elder Minnett had concluded, "that girl says she worked at Hoskin & Marl's?" "Yes."
"You you mean to say you stole like she says?" "I was arrested in Hoskin & Marl's. They accused me of stealing. Yes." She said no more. She turned, when he did not speak again, and walked slowly to the stairway door. She opened it and went up, closing the door behind her. It was Ida May who moved first when she was gone. She jumped up once more and started for the stairway.
"As for folks talking, if that Bostwick girl wants to keep her job with Hoskin & Marl's she'll keep her mouth shut about Sheila. She understands that. And Hoskin & Marl everybody, in fact that was connected with that awful thing that happened to Sheila have done all in their power to make amends." For the first time his aunt's lips opened. "The poor child!" she said.
It must be got aboard, stowed properly, and advantage taken of the tide and a fair wind to get back to the Cape. He had not been in the habit of going up into the city at all of late. If that girl behind the lace counter of Hoskin & Marl's had expected to see Tunis Latham again, she had been disappointed.
"Tunis!" she murmured with clasped hands. "Yesterday I spent two hours in the manager's office of Hoskin & Marl's. They have been looking for you for more than six months. Naturally, there was no record of you after you left that that school when your time was out. They didn't seem to guess you'd have got work in that Seller's place." "What do you mean? What did they want me for?" gasped the girl.
There is a psychological reason for the haberdashery goods, the line for the mere male, being placed always within sight of a principal exit. The catacombs of Rome would be no more terrifying in prospect for a man than a venture into the farther intricacies of Hoskin & Marl's.
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