“I—I shall devote my life to my father. It's no use, Jefferson—really—I've thought it all out. You must not come back to me—you understand. We must be alone with our grief—father and I. Good-bye.”
He raised her hand to his lips.
“Good-bye, Shirley. Don't forget me. I shall come back for you.”
He went down the porch and she watched him go out of the gate and down the road until she could see his figure no longer. Then she turned back and sank into her chair and burying her face in her handkerchief she gave way to a torrent of tears which afforded some relief to the weight on her heart. Presently the others returned from their walk and she told them about the visitor.
“Mr. Ryder's son, Jefferson, was here. We crossed on the same ship. I introduced him to Judge Stott on the dock.”
The judge looked surprised, but he merely said:
“I hope for his sake that he is a different man from his father.”
“He is,” replied Shirley simply, and nothing more was said.
Two days went by, during which Shirley went on completing the preparations for her visit to New York. It was arranged that Stott should escort her to the city. Shortly before they started for the train a letter arrived for Shirley. Like the first one it had been forwarded by her publishers. It read as follows:
Miss Shirley Green,
Dear Madam.—I shall be happy to see you at my residence—Fifth Avenue—any afternoon that you will mention.
Yours very truly,
John Burkett Ryder,
per B.
Shirley smiled in triumph as, unseen by her father and mother, she passed it over to Stott. She at once sat down and wrote this reply:
Mr. John Burkett Ryder,
Dear Sir.—I am sorry that I am unable to comply with your request. I prefer the invitation to call at your private residence should come from Mrs. Ryder.
Yours, etc.,
Shirley Green.
She laughed as she showed this to Stott:
“He'll write me again,” she said, “and next time his wife will sign the letter.”
An hour later she left Massapequa for the city.
The Hon. Fitzroy Bagley had every reason to feel satisfied with himself. His affaire de cœur with the Senator's daughter was progressing more smoothly than ever, and nothing now seemed likely to interfere with his carefully prepared plans to capture an American heiress. The interview with Kate Roberts in the library, so awkwardly disturbed by Jefferson's unexpected intrusion, had been followed by other interviews more secret and more successful, and the plausible secretary had contrived so well to persuade the girl that he really thought the world of her, and that a brilliant future awaited her as his wife, that it was not long before he found her in a mood to refuse him nothing.
Bagley urged immediate marriage; he insinuated that Jefferson had treated her shamefully and that she owed it to herself to show the world that there were other men as good as the one who had jilted her. He argued that in view of the Senator being bent on the match with Ryder's son it would be worse than useless for him, Bagley, to make formal application for her hand, so, as he explained, the only thing which remained was a runaway marriage. Confronted with the fait accompli, papa Roberts would bow to the inevitable. They could get married quietly in town, go away for a short trip, and when the Senator had gotten over his first disappointment they would be welcomed back with open arms.
Kate listened willingly enough to this specious reasoning. In her heart she was piqued at Jefferson's indifference and she was foolish enough to really believe that this marriage with a British nobleman, twice removed, would be in the nature of a triumph over him. Besides, this project of an elopement appealed strangely to her frivolous imagination; it put her in the same class as all her favourite novel heroines. And it would be capital fun!
Meantime, Senator Roberts, in blissful ignorance of this little plot against his domestic peace, was growing impatient and he approached his friend Ryder once more on the subject of his son Jefferson. The young man, he said, had been back from Europe some time. He insisted on knowing what his attitude was towards his daughter. If they were engaged to be married he said there should be a public announcement of the fact. It was unfair to him and a slight to his daughter to let matters hang fire in this unsatisfactory way and he hinted that both himself and his daughter might demand their passports from the Ryder mansion unless some explanation were forthcoming.
Ryder was in a quandary. He had no wish to quarrel with his useful Washington ally; he recognized the reasonableness of his complaint. Yet what could he do? Much as he himself desired the marriage, his son was obstinate and showed little inclination to settle down. He even hinted at attractions in another quarter. He did not tell the Senator of his recent interview with his son when the latter made it very plain that the marriage could never take place. Ryder, Sr., had his own reasons for wishing to temporize. It was quite possible that Jefferson might change his mind and abandon his idea of going abroad and he suggested to the Senator that perhaps if he, the Senator, made the engagement public through the newspapers it might have the salutary effect of forcing his son's hand.
So a few mornings later there appeared among the society notes in several of the New York papers this paragraph:
“The engagement is announced of Miss Katherine Roberts, only daughter of senator Roberts of Wisconsin, to Jefferson Ryder, son of Mr. John Burkett Ryder.”
Two persons in New York happened to see the item about the same time and both were equally interested, although it affected them in a different manner. One was Shirley Rossmore, who had chanced to pick up the newspaper at the breakfast table in her boarding house.
“So soon?” she murmured to herself. Well, why not? She could not blame Jefferson. He had often spoken to her of this match arranged by his father and they had laughed over it as a typical marriage of convenience modelled after the Continental pattern. Jefferson, she knew, had never cared for the girl nor taken the affair seriously. Some powerful influences must have been at work to make him surrender so easily. Here again she recognized the masterly hand of Ryder, Sr., and more than ever she was eager to meet this extraordinary man and measure her strength with his. Her mind, indeed, was too full of her father's troubles to grieve over her own however much she might have been inclined to do so under other circumstances, and all that day she did her best to banish the paragraph from her thoughts. More than a week had passed since she left Massapequa and what with corresponding with financiers, calling on editors and publishers, every moment of her time had been kept busy. She had found a quiet and reasonable priced boarding house off Washington Square and here Stott had called several times to see her. Her correspondence with Mr. Ryder had now reached a phase when it was impossible to invent any further excuses for delaying the interview asked for. As she had foreseen, a day or two after her arrival in town she had received a note from Mrs. Ryder asking her to do her the honour to call and see her, and Shirley, after waiting another two days, had replied making an appointment for the following day at three o'clock. This was the same day on which the paragraph concerning the Ryder-Roberts engagement appeared in the society chronicles of the metropolis.
Directly after the meagre meal which in New York boarding houses is dignified by the name of luncheon, Shirley proceeded to get ready for this portentous visit to the Ryder mansion. She was anxious to make a favourable impression on the financier, so she took some pains with her personal appearance. She always looked stylish, no matter what she wore, and her poverty was of too recent date to make much difference to her wardrobe, which was still well supplied with Paris-made gowns. She selected a simple close-fitting gown of gray chiffon cloth and a picture hat of Leghorn straw heaped with red roses, Shirley's favourite flower. Thus arrayed, she sallied forth at two o'clock—a little gray mouse to do battle with the formidable lion.
The sky was threatening, so instead of walking a short way up Fifth Avenue for exercise, as she had intended doing, she cut across town through Ninth Street, and took the surface car on Fourth Avenue. This would put her down at Madison Avenue and Seventy-fourth Street, which was only a block from the Ryder residence. She looked so pretty and was so well dressed that the passers-by who looked after her wondered why she did not take a cab instead of standing on a street corner for a car. But one's outward appearance is not always a faithful index to the condition of one's pocketbook, and Shirley was rapidly acquiring the art of economy.
It was not without a certain trepidation that she began this journey. So far, all her plans had been based largely on theory, but now that she was actually on her way to Mr. Ryder all sorts of misgivings beset her. Suppose he knew her by sight and roughly accused her of obtaining access to his house under false pretences and then had her ejected by the servants? How terrible and humiliating that would be! And even if he did not how could she possibly find those letters with him watching her, and all in the brief time of a conventional afternoon call? It had been an absurd idea from the first. Stott was right; she saw that now. But she had entered upon it and she was not going to confess herself beaten until she had tried. And as the car sped along Madison Avenue, gradually drawing nearer to the house which she was going to enter disguised as it were, like a burglar, she felt cold chills run up and down her spine—the same sensation that one experiences when one rings the bell of a dentist's where one has gone to have a tooth extracted. In fact, she felt so nervous and frightened that if she had not been ashamed before herself she would have turned back. In about twenty minutes the car stopped at the corner of Seventy-fourth Street. Shirley descended and with a quickened pulse walked towards the Ryder mansion, which she knew well by sight.
There was one other person in New York who, that same morning, had read the newspaper item regarding the Ryder-Roberts betrothal, and he did not take the matter so calmly as Shirley had done. On the contrary, it had the effect of putting him into a violent rage. This was Jefferson. He was working in his studio when he read it and five minutes later he was tearing up-town to seek the author of it. He understood its object, of course; they wanted to force his hand, to shame him into this marriage, to so entangle him with the girl that no other alternative would be possible to an honourable man. It was a despicable trick and he had no doubt that his father was at the back of it. So his mind now was fully made up. He would go away at once where they could not make his life a burden with this odious marriage which was fast becoming a nightmare to him. He would close up his studio and leave immediately for Europe. He would show his father once for all that he was a man and expected to be treated as one.
He wondered what Shirley was doing. Where had she gone, what was this mysterious work of which she had spoken? He only realized now, when she seemed entirely beyond his reach, how much he loved her and how empty his life would be without her. He would know no happiness until she was his wife. Her words on the porch did not discourage him. Under the circumstances he could not expect her to have said anything else. She could not marry into John Ryder's family with such a charge hanging over her own father's head, but, later, when the trial was over, no matter how it turned out, he would go to her again and ask her to be his wife.
On arriving home the first person he saw was the ubiquitous Mr. Bagley, who stood at the top of the first staircase giving some letters to the butler. Jefferson cornered him at once, holding out the newspaper containing the offending paragraph.
“Say, Bagley,” he cried, “what does this mean? Is this any of your doing?”
The English secretary gave his employer's son a haughty stare, and then, without deigning to reply or even to glance at the newspaper, continued his instructions to the servant:
“Here, Jorkins, get stamps for all these letters and see they are mailed at once. They are very important.”
“Very good, sir.”
The man took the letters and disappeared, while Jefferson, impatient, repeated his question:
“My doing?” sneered Mr. Bagley. “Really, Jefferson, you go too far! Do you suppose for one instant that I would condescend to trouble myself with your affairs?”
Jefferson was in no mood to put up with insolence from anyone, especially from a man whom he heartily despised, so advancing menacingly he thundered:
“I mean—were you, in the discharge of your menial-like duties, instructed by my father to send that paragraph to the newspapers regarding my alleged betrothal to Miss Roberts? Yes or No?”
The man winced and made a step backward. There was a gleam in the Ryder eye which he knew by experience boded no good.
“Really, Jefferson,” he said in a more conciliatory tone, “I know absolutely nothing about the paragraph. This is the first I hear of it. Why not ask your father?”
“I will,” replied Jefferson grimly.
He was turning to go in the direction of the library when Bagley stopped him.
“You cannot possibly see him now,” he said. “Sergeant Ellison of the Secret Service is in there with him, and your father told me not to disturb him on any account. He has another appointment at three o'clock with some woman who writes books.”
Seeing that the fellow was in earnest, Jefferson did not insist. He could see his father a little later or send him a message through his mother. Proceeding upstairs he found Mrs. Ryder in her room and in a few energetic words he explained the situation to his mother. They had gone too far with this match-making business, he said, his father was trying to interfere with his personal liberty and he was going to put a stop to it. He would leave at once for Europe. Mrs. Ryder had already heard of the projected trip abroad, so the news of this sudden departure was not the shock it might otherwise have been. In her heart she did not blame her son, on the contrary she admired his spirit, and if the temporary absence from home would make him happier, she would not hold him back. Yet, mother like, she wept and coaxed, but nothing would shake Jefferson in his determination and he begged his mother to make it very plain to his father that this was final and that a few days would see him on his way abroad. He would try and come back to see his father that afternoon, but otherwise she was to say good-bye for him. Mrs. Ryder promised tearfully to do what her son demanded and a few minutes later Jefferson was on his way to the front door.
As he went down stairs something white on the carpet attracted his attention. He stooped and picked it up. It was a letter. It was in Bagley's handwriting and had evidently been dropped by the man to whom the secretary had given it to post. But what interested Jefferson more than anything else was that it was addressed to Miss Kate Roberts. Under ordinary circumstances, a king's ransom would not have tempted the young man to read a letter addressed to another, but he was convinced that his father's secretary was an adventurer and if he were carrying on an intrigue in this manner it could have only one meaning. It was his duty to unveil a rascal who was using the Ryder roof and name to further his own ends and victimize a girl who, although sophisticated enough to know better, was too silly to realize the risk she ran at the hands of an unscrupulous man. Hesitating no longer, Jefferson tore open the envelope and read:
My dearest wife that is to be:
I have arranged everything. Next Wednesday—just a week from to-day—we will go to the house of a discreet friend of mine where a minister will marry us; then we will go to City Hall and get through the legal part of it. Afterwards, we can catch the four o'clock train for Buffalo. Meet me in the ladies' room at the Holland House Wednesday morning at 11 a.m. I will come there with a closed cab.
Your devoted
Fitz.
“Phew!” Jefferson whistled. A close shave this for Senator Roberts, he thought. His first impulse was to go upstairs again to his mother and put the matter in her hands. She would immediately inform his father, who would make short work of Mr. Bagley. But, thought Jefferson, why should he spoil a good thing? He could afford to wait a day or two. There was no hurry. He could allow Bagley to think all was going swimmingly and then uncover the plot at the eleventh hour. He would even let this letter go to Kate, there was no difficulty in procuring another envelope and imitating the handwriting—and when Bagley was just preparing to go to the rendezvous he would spring the trap. Such a cad deserved no mercy. The scandal would be a knock-out blow, his father would discharge him on the spot and that would be the last they would see of the aristocratic English secretary. Jefferson put the letter in his pocket and left the house rejoicing.
While the foregoing incidents were happening John Burkett Ryder was secluded in his library. The great man had come home earlier than usual, for he had two important callers to see by appointment that afternoon. One was Sergeant Ellison, who had to report on his mission to Massapequa; the other was Miss Shirley Green, the author of “The American Octopus,” who had at last deigned to honour him with a visit. Pending the arrival of these visitors the financier was busy with his secretary trying to get rid as rapidly as possible of what business and correspondence there was on hand.
The plutocrat was sitting at his desk poring over a mass of papers. Between his teeth was the inevitable long black cigar and when he raised his eyes to the light a close observer might have remarked that they were sea-green, a colour they assumed when the man of millions was absorbed in scheming new business deals. Every now and then he stopped reading the papers to make quick calculations on scraps of paper. Then if the result pleased him, a smile overspread his saturnine features. He rose from his chair and nervously paced the floor as he always did when thinking deeply.
“Five millions,” he muttered, “not a cent more. If they won't sell we'll crush them—”
Mr. Bagley entered. Mr. Ryder looked up quickly.
“Well, Bagley?” he said interrogatively. “Has Sergeant Ellison come?”
“Yes, sir. But Mr. Herts is downstairs. He insists on seeing you about the Philadelphia gas deal. He says it is a matter of life and death.”
“To him—yes,” answered the financier dryly. “Let him come up. We might as well have it out now.”
Mr. Bagley went out and returned almost immediately, followed by a short, fat man, rather loudly dressed and apoplectic in appearance. He looked like a prosperous brewer, while, as a matter of fact, he was president of a gas company, one of the shrewdest promoters in the country, and a big man in Wall Street. There was only one bigger man and that was John Ryder. But, to-day, Mr. Herts was not in good condition. His face was pale and his manner flustered and nervous. He was plainly worried.
“Mr. Ryder,” he began with excited gesture, “the terms you offer are preposterous. It would mean disaster to the stockholders. Our gas properties are worth six times that amount. We will sell out for twenty millions—not a cent less.”
Ryder shrugged his shoulders.
“Mr. Herts,” he replied coolly, “I am busy to-day and in no mood for arguing. We'll either buy you out or force you out. Choose. You have our offer. Five millions for your gas property. Will you take it?”
“We'll see you in hell first!” cried his visitor exasperated.
“Very well,” replied Ryder still unruffled, “all negotiations are off. You leave me free to act. We have an offer to buy cheap the old Germantown Gas Company which has charter rights to go into any of the streets of Philadelphia. We shall purchase that company, we will put ten millions new capital into it, and reduce the price of gas in Philadelphia to sixty cents a thousand. Where will you be then?”
The face of the Colossus as he uttered this stand and deliver speech was calm and inscrutable. Conscious of the resistless power of his untold millions, he felt no more compunction in mercilessly crushing this business rival than he would in trampling out the life of a worm. The little man facing him looked haggard and distressed. He knew well that this was no idle threat. He was well aware that Ryder and his associates by the sheer weight of the enormous wealth they controlled could sell out or destroy any industrial corporation in the land. It was plainly illegal, but it was done every day, and his company was not the first victim nor the last. Desperate, he appealed humbly to the tyrannical Money Power:
“Don't drive us to the wall, Mr. Ryder. This forced sale will mean disaster to us all. Put yourself in our place—think what it means to scores of families whose only support is the income from their investment in our company.”
“Mr. Herts,” replied Ryder unmoved, “I never allow sentiment to interfere with business. You have heard my terms. I refuse to argue the matter further. What is it to be? Five millions or competition? Decide now or this interview must end!”
He took out his watch and with his other hand touched a bell. Beads of perspiration stood on his visitor's forehead. In a voice broken with suppressed emotion he said hoarsely:
“You're a hard, pitiless man, John Ryder! So be it—five millions. I don't know what they'll say. I don't dare return to them.”
“Those are my terms,” said Ryder coldly. “The papers,” he added, “will be ready for your signature to-morrow at this time, and I'll have a cheque ready for the entire amount. Good-day.”
Mr. Bagley entered. Ryder bowed to Herts, who slowly retired. When the door had closed on him Ryder went back to his desk, a smile of triumph on his face. Then he turned to his secretary:
“Let Sergeant Ellison come up,” he said.
The secretary left the room and Mr. Ryder sank comfortably in his chair, puffing silently at his long black cigar. The financier was thinking, but his thoughts concerned neither the luckless gas president he had just pitilessly crushed, nor the detective who had come to make his report. He was thinking of the book “The American Octopus,” and its bold author whom he was to meet in a very few minutes. He glanced at the clock. A quarter to three. She would be here in fifteen minutes if she were punctual, but women seldom are, he reflected. What kind of a woman could she be, this Shirley Green, to dare cross swords with a man whose power was felt in two hemispheres? No ordinary woman, that was certain. He tried to imagine what she looked like, and he pictured a tall, gaunt, sexless spinster with spectacles, a sort of nightmare in the garb of a woman. A sour, discontented creature, bitter to all mankind, owing to disappointments in early life and especially vindictive towards the rich, whom her socialistic and even anarchistical tendencies prompted her to hate and attack. Yet, withal, a brainy, intelligent woman, remarkably well informed as to political and industrial conditions—a woman to make a friend of rather than an enemy. And John Ryder, who had educated himself to believe that with gold he could do everything, that none could resist its power, had no doubt that with money he could enlist this Shirley Green in his service. At least it would keep her from writing more books about him.
The door opened and Sergeant Ellison entered, followed by the secretary, who almost immediately withdrew.
“Well, sergeant,” said Mr. Ryder cordially, “what have you to tell me? I can give you only a few minutes. I expect a lady friend of yours.”
The plutocrat sometimes condescended to be jocular with his subordinates.
“A lady friend of mine, sir?” echoed the man, puzzled.
“Yes—Miss Shirley Green, the author,” replied the financier, enjoying the detective's embarrassment. “That suggestion of yours worked out all right. She's coming here to-day.”
“I'm glad you've found her, sir.”
“It was a tough job,” answered Ryder with a grimace. “We wrote her half a dozen times before she was satisfied with the wording of the invitation. But, finally, we landed her and I expect her at three o'clock. Now what about that Rossmore girl? Did you go down to Massapequa?”
“Yes, sir, I have been there half a dozen times. In fact, I've just come from there. Judge Rossmore is there, all right, but his daughter has left for parts unknown.”
“Gone away—where?” exclaimed the financier.
This was what he dreaded. As long as he could keep his eye on the girl there was little danger of Jefferson making a fool of himself; with her disappeared everything was possible.
“I could not find out, sir. Their neighbours don't know much about them. They say they're haughty and stuck up. The only one I could get anything out of was a parson named Deetle. He said it was a sad case, that they had reverses and a daughter who was in Paris—”
“Yes, yes,” said Ryder impatiently, “we know all that. But where's the daughter now?”
“Search me, sir. I even tried to pump the Irish slavey. Gee, what a vixen! She almost flew at me. She said she didn't know and didn't care.”
Ryder brought his fist down with force on his desk, a trick he had when he wished to emphasize a point.
“Sergeant, I don't like the mysterious disappearance of that girl. You must find her, do you hear, you must find her if it takes all the sleuths in the country. Had my son been seen there?”
“The parson said he saw a young fellow answering his description sitting on the porch of the Rossmore cottage the evening before the girl disappeared, but he didn't know who he was and hasn't seen him since.”
“That was my son, I'll wager. He knows where the girl is. Perhaps he's with her now. Maybe he's going to marry her. That must be prevented at any cost. Sergeant, find that Rossmore girl and I'll give you $1,000.”
The detective's face flushed with pleasure at the prospect of so liberal a reward. Rising he said:
“I'll find her, sir. I'll find her.”
Mr. Bagley entered, wearing the solemn, important air he always affected when he had to announce a visitor of consequence. But before he could open his mouth Mr. Ryder said:
“Bagley, when did you see my son, Jefferson, last?”
“To-day, sir. He wanted to see you to say good-bye. He said he would be back.”
Ryder gave a sigh of relief and addressing the detective said:
“It's not so bad as I thought.” Then turning again to his secretary he asked:
“Well, Bagley, what is it?”
“There's a lady downstairs, sir—Miss Shirley Green.”
The financier half sprang from his seat.
“Oh, yes. Show her up at once. Good-bye, sergeant, good-bye. Find that Rossmore woman and the $1,000 is yours.”
The detective went out and a few moments later Mr. Bagley reappeared ushering in Shirley.
The mouse was in the den of the lion.
Mr. Ryder remained at his desk and did not even look up when his visitor entered. He pretended to be busily preoccupied with his papers, which was a favourite pose of his when receiving strangers. This frigid reception invariably served its purpose, for it led visitors not to expect more than they got, which usually was little enough. For several minutes Shirley stood still, not knowing whether to advance or to take a seat. She gave a little conventional cough, and Ryder looked up. What he saw so astonished him that he at once took from his mouth the cigar he was smoking and rose from his seat. He had expected a gaunt old maid with spectacles, and here was a stylish, good-looking young woman, who could not possibly be over twenty-five. There was surely some mistake. This slip of a girl could not have written “The American Octopus.” He advanced to greet Shirley.
“You wish to see me, Madame?” he asked courteously. There were times when even John Burkett Ryder could be polite.
“Yes,” replied Shirley, her voice trembling a little; in spite of her efforts to keep cool. “I am here by appointment. Three o'clock, Mrs. Ryder's note said. I am Miss Green.”
“You—Miss Green?” echoed the financier dubiously.
“Yes, I am Miss Green—Shirley Green, author of ‘The American Octopus.’ You asked me to call. Here I am.”
For the first time in his life, John Ryder was nonplussed. He coughed and stammered and looked round for a place where he could throw his cigar. Shirley, who enjoyed his embarrassment, put him at his ease.
“Oh, please go on smoking,” she said; “I don't mind it in the least.”
Ryder threw the cigar into a receptacle and looked closely at his visitor.
“So you are Shirley Green, eh?”
“That is my nom-de-plume—yes,” replied the girl nervously. She was already wishing herself back at Massapequa. The financier eyed her for a moment in silence as if trying to gauge the strength of the personality of this audacious young woman, who had dared to criticise his business methods in public print; then, waving her to a seat near his desk, he said:
“Won't you sit down?”
“Thank you,” murmured Shirley. She sat down, and he took his seat at the other side of the desk, which brought them face to face. Again inspecting the girl with a close scrutiny that made her cheeks burn, Ryder said:
“I rather expected—” He stopped for a moment as if uncertain what to say, then he added: “You're younger than I thought you were, Miss Green, much younger.”
“Time will remedy that,” smiled Shirley. Then, mischievously, she added: “I rather expected to see Mrs. Ryder.”
There was the faintest suspicion of a smile playing around the corners of the plutocrat's mouth as he picked up a book lying on his desk and replied:
“Yes—she wrote you, but I—wanted to see you about this.”
Shirley's pulse throbbed faster, but she tried hard to appear unconcerned as she answered:
“Oh, my book—have you read it?”
“I have,” replied Ryder slowly and, fixing her with a stare that was beginning to make her uncomfortable, he went on: “No doubt your time is valuable, so I'll come right to the point. I want to ask you, Miss Green, where you got the character of your central figure—the Octopus, as you call him—John Broderick?”
“From imagination—of course,” answered Shirley.
Ryder opened the book, and Shirley noticed that there were several passages marked. He turned the leaves over in silence for a minute or two and then he said:
“You've sketched a pretty big man here—”
“Yes,” assented Shirley, “he has big possibilities, but I think he makes very small use of them.”
Ryder appeared not to notice her commentary, and, still reading the book, he continued:
“On page 22 you call him ‘the world's greatest individualized potentiality, a giant combination of materiality, mentality and money—the greatest exemplar of individual human will in existence to-day.’ And you make indomitable will and energy the keystone of his marvellous success. Am I right?” He looked at her questioningly.
“Quite right,” answered Shirley.
Ryder proceeded:
“On page 26 you say ‘the machinery of his money-making mind typifies the laws of perpetual unrest. It must go on, relentlessly, resistlessly, ruthlessly making money—making money and continuing to make money. It cannot stop until the machinery crumbles.’”
Laying the book down and turning sharply on Shirley, he asked her bluntly:
“Do you mean to say that I couldn't stop to-morrow if I wanted to?”
She affected to not understand him.
“You?” she inquired in a tone of surprise.
“Well—it's a natural question,” stammered Ryder, with a nervous little laugh; “every man sees himself in the hero of a novel just as every woman sees herself in the heroine. We're all heroes and heroines in our own eyes. But tell me what's your private opinion of this man. You drew the character. What do you think of him as a type, how would you classify him?”
“As the greatest criminal the world has yet produced,” replied Shirley without a moment's hesitation.
The financier looked at the girl in unfeigned astonishment.
“Criminal?” he echoed.
“Yes, criminal,” repeated Shirley decisively. “He is avarice, egotism, and ambition incarnate. He loves money because he loves power, and he loves power more than his fellow man.”
Ryder laughed uneasily. Decidedly, this girl had opinions of her own which she was not backward to express.
“Isn't that rather strong?” he asked.
“I don't think so,” replied Shirley. Then quickly she asked: “But what does it matter? No such man exists.”
“No, of course not,” said Ryder, and he relapsed into silence.
Yet while he said nothing, the plutocrat was watching his visitor closely from under his thick eyebrows. She seemed supremely unconscious of his scrutiny. Her aristocratic, thoughtful face gave no sign that any ulterior motive had actuated her evidently very hostile attitude against him. That he was in her mind when she drew the character of John Broderick there was no doubt possible. No matter how she might evade the identification, he was convinced he was the hero of her book. Why had she attacked him so bitterly? At first, it occurred to him that blackmail might be her object; she might be going to ask for money as the price of future silence. Yet it needed but a glance at her refined and modest demeanour to dispel that idea as absurd. Then he remembered, too, that it was not she who had sought this interview, but himself. No, she was no blackmailer. More probably she was a dreamer—one of those meddling sociologists who, under pretence of bettering the conditions of the working classes, stir up discontent and bitterness of feeling. As such; she might prove more to be feared than a mere blackmailer whom he could buy off with money. He knew he was not popular, but he was no worse than the other captains of industry. It was a cut-throat game at best. Competition was the soul of commercial life, and if he had outwitted his competitors and made himself richer than all of them, he was not a criminal for that. But all these attacks in newspapers and books did not do him any good. One day the people might take these demagogic writings seriously and then there would be the devil to pay. He took up the book again and ran over the pages. This certainly was no ordinary girl. She knew more and had a more direct way of saying things than any woman he had ever met. And as he watched her furtively across the desk he wondered how he could use her; how instead of being his enemy, he could make her his friend. If he did not, she would go away and write more such books, and literature of this kind might become a real peril to his interests. Money could do anything; it could secure the services of this woman and prevent her doing further mischief. But how could he employ her? Suddenly an inspiration came to him. For some years he had been collecting material for a history of the Empire Trading Company. She could write it. It would practically be his own biography. Would she undertake it?
Embarrassed by the long silence, Shirley finally broke it by saying:
“But you didn't ask me to call merely to find out what I thought of my own work.”
“No,” replied Ryder slowly, “I want you to do some work for me.”
He opened a drawer at the left-hand side of his desk and took out several sheets of foolscap and a number of letters. Shirley's heart beat faster as she caught sight of the letters. Were her father's among them? She wondered what kind of work John Burkett Ryder had for her to do and if she would do it whatever it was. Some literary work probably, compiling or something of that kind. If it was well paid, why should she not accept? There would be nothing humiliating in it; it would not tie her hands in any way. She was a professional writer in the market to be employed by whoever could pay the price. Besides, such work might give her better opportunities to secure the letters of which she was in search. Gathering in one pile all the papers he had removed from the drawer, Mr. Ryder said:
“I want you to put my biography together from this material. But first,” he added, taking up “The American Octopus,” “I want to know where you got the details of this man's life.”
“Oh, for the most part—imagination, newspapers, magazines,” replied Shirley carelessly. “You know the American millionaire is a very overworked topic just now—and naturally I've read—”
“Yes, I understand,” he said, “but I refer to what you haven't read—what you couldn't have read. For example, here.” He turned to a page marked in the book and read aloud: “As an evidence of his petty vanity, when a youth he had a beautiful Indian girl tattooed just above the forearm.” Ryder leaned eagerly forward as he asked her searchingly: “Now who told you that I had my arm tattooed when I was a boy?”
“Have you?” laughed Shirley nervously. “What a curious coincidence!”
“Let me read you another coincidence,” said Ryder meaningly. He turned to another part of the book and read: “the same eternal long black cigar always between his lips ...”
“General Grant smoked, too,” interrupted Shirley. “All men who think deeply along material lines seem to smoke.”
“Well, we'll let that go. But how about this?” He turned back a few pages and read: “John Broderick had loved, when a young man, a girl who lived in Vermont, but circumstances separated them.” He stopped and stared at Shirley a moment and then he said: “I loved a girl when I was a lad and she came from Vermont, and circumstances separated us. That isn't coincidence, for presently you make John Broderick marry a young woman who had money. I married a girl with money.”
“Lots of men marry for money,” remarked Shirley.
“I said with money, not for money,” retorted Ryder. Then turning again to the book, he said: “Now, this is what I can't understand, for no one could have told you this but I myself. Listen.” He read aloud: “With all his physical bravery and personal courage, John Broderick was intensely afraid of death. It was on his mind constantly.” “Who told you that?” he demanded somewhat roughly. “I swear I've never mentioned it to a living soul.”
“Most men who amass money are afraid of death,” replied Shirley with outward composure, “for death is about the only thing that can separate them from their money.”
Ryder laughed, but it was a hollow, mocking laugh, neither sincere nor hearty. It was a laugh such as the devil may have given when driven out of heaven.
“You're quite a character!” He laughed again, and Shirley, catching the infection, laughed, too.
“It's me and it isn't me,” went on Ryder flourishing the book. “This fellow Broderick is all right; he's successful and he's great, but I don't like his finish.”
“It's logical,” ventured Shirley.
“It's cruel,” insisted Ryder.
“So is the man who reverses the divine law and hates his neighbour instead of loving him,” retorted Shirley.
She spoke more boldly, beginning to feel more sure of her ground, and it amused her to fence in this way with the man of millions. So far, she thought, he had not got the best of her. She was fast becoming used to him, and her first feeling of intimidation was passing away.
“Um!” grunted Ryder, “you're a curious girl; upon my word you interest me!” He took the mass of papers lying at his elbow and pushed them over to her. “Here,” he said, “I want you to make as clever a book out of this chaos as you did out of your own imagination.”
Shirley turned the papers over carelessly.
“So you think your life is a good example to follow?” she asked with a tinge of irony.
“Isn't it?” he demanded.
The girl looked him square in the face.
“Suppose,” she said, “we all wanted to follow it, suppose we all wanted to be the richest, the most powerful personage in the world?”
“Well—what then?” he demanded.
“I think it would postpone the era of the Brotherhood of man indefinitely, don't you?”
“I never thought of it from that point of view,” admitted the billionaire. “Really,” he added, “you're an extraordinary girl. Why, you can't be more than twenty—or so.”
“I'm twenty-four—or so,” smiled Shirley.
Ryder's face expanded in a broad smile. He admired this girl's pluck and ready wit. He grew more amiable and tried to gain her confidence. In a coaxing tone he said:
“Come, where did you get those details? Take me into your confidence.”
“I have taken you into my confidence,” laughed Shirley, pointing at her book. “It cost you $1.50!” Turning over the papers he had put before her she said presently: “I don't know about this.”
“You don't think my life would make good reading?” he asked with some asperity.
“It might,” she replied slowly, as if unwilling to commit herself as to its commercial or literary value. Then she said frankly: “To tell you the honest truth, I don't consider mere genius in money-making is sufficient provocation for rushing into print. You see, unless you come to a bad end, it would have no moral.”
Ignoring the not very flattering insinuation contained in this last speech, the plutocrat continued to urge her:
“You can name your own price if you will do the work,” he said. “Two, three or even five thousand dollars. It's only a few months' work.”
“Five thousand dollars?” echoed Shirley. “That's a lot of money.” Smiling, she added: “It appeals to my commercial sense. But I'm afraid the subject does not arouse my enthusiasm from an artistic standpoint.”
Ryder seemed amused at the idea of any one hesitating to make five thousand dollars. He knew that writers do not run across such opportunities every day.
“Upon my word,” he said, “I don't know why I'm so anxious to get you to do the work. I suppose it's because you don't want to. You remind me of my son. Ah, he's a problem!”
Shirley started involuntarily when Ryder mentioned his son. But he did not notice it.
“Why, is he wild?” she asked, as if only mildly interested.
“Oh, no, I wish he were,” said Ryder.
“Fallen in love with the wrong woman, I suppose,” she said.