She thrust her hand into her pocket as she spoke. As she was taking out Tom’s present, Susan and her sister emerged into the light.
Both Susan and Maria caught sight of each other at the same moment. And each realized in a flash that the other knew the true position of affairs. The glare of hate from Susan’s eyes was answered by a contemptuous stare and a peal of derisive laughter from Maria. Susan’s sister and Maria’s friends at once understood that a desperate struggle had begun between the two.
Maria’s ringing jeer was more than any ordinary woman could tolerate. Susan tried to answer it with a laugh as contemptuous, but failed, her wrath choking her. Then she put all pretence aside, and swiftly moving up to Maria she thrust her face into the face of the other girl. “See here, ma’am,” she hissed, “I want to ask you one thing: is it me you laughing at?”
“But stop!” exclaimed Maria, backing away a little, and defiantly placing her arms akimbo. “Stop! You ever see my trial! Then I can’t laugh without your permission, eh?” Saying which she laughed again as contemptuously as before, and swung round with a flounce so as to bring one of her elbows into unpleasant proximity to Susan’s waist.
“I don’t say you can’t laugh, an’ I don’t care if y’u choose to laugh till you drop,” cried Susan bitterly; “but I want to tell you that y’u can’t laugh at me!”
“So you’re better than everybody else?” sneered Maria. “Y’u think you are so pretty, eh? Well! there is a miss for you! She can’t even behave herself in de public street, though she always walk an’ shake her head as if she was a princess, an’ though she call herself ‘young lady.’ But perhaps she think she lose something good, an’ can’t recover from the loss as yet!” And again that maddening peal of laughter rang out.
Susan did not answer Maria directly. She eyed that young woman swiftly, and noticed that her dress was old and her shoes poor and dusty. This gave her the advantage she needed in dealing with a girl who was all contempt while she herself was all temper. She turned to her sister and to Maria’s friends, and pointed to Maria with scorn.
“Look at her!” she cried. “Look how she stand! Her face is like a cocoa-nut trash, and she don’t even have a decent frock to put on!”
Maria might have passed over the reference to her face; she knew it was only spiteful abuse. But the allusion to the scantiness of her wardrobe was absolutely unforgivable. If not exactly true, it yet approached perilously near the truth, and so it cut her to the quick. No sooner were the words uttered than Maria’s forefinger was wagging in Susan’s face, and:
“Say that again, an’ I box you!” she screamed.