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