"From imagination--of course," answered Shirley.
Ryder opened the book, and Shirley noticed that there were several pa.s.sages 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," a.s.sented 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 cla.s.sify 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 att.i.tude 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 cla.s.ses, 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. Compet.i.tion was the soul of commercial life, and if he had outwitted his compet.i.tors 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?
Embarra.s.sed 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 circ.u.mstances 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 circ.u.mstances 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 ama.s.s 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 pa.s.sing away.
"Um!" grunted Ryder, "you"re a curious girl; upon my word you interest me!" He took the ma.s.s 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.