“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: