“As you think best, Mr. Ryder.  I am quite willing to do the work here.”

Ryder, Sr., escorted her to the top of the landing and watched her as she passed down the grand staircase, ushered by the gorgeously uniformed flunkies, to the front door and the street.

CHAPTER XIII

Shirley entered upon her new duties in the Ryder household two days later.  She had returned to her rooms the evening of her meeting with the financier in a state bordering upon hysteria.  The day’s events had been so extraordinary that it seemed to her they could not be real, and that she must be in a dream.  The car ride to Seventy-fourth Street, the interview in the library, the discovery of her father’s letters, the offer to write the biography, and, what to her was still more important, the invitation to go and live in the Ryder home—­all these incidents were so remarkable and unusual that it was only with difficulty that the girl persuaded herself that they were not figments of a disordered brain.

But it was all true enough.  The next morning’s mail brought a letter from Mrs. Ryder, who wrote to the effect that Mr. Ryder would like the work to begin at once, and adding that a suite of rooms would be ready for her the following afternoon.  Shirley did not hesitate.  Everything was to be gained by making the Ryder residence her headquarters, her father’s very life depended upon the successful outcome of her present mission, and this unhoped for opportunity practically ensured success.  She immediately wrote to Massapequa.  One letter was to her mother, saying that she was extending her visit beyond the time originally planned.  The other letter was to Stott.  She told him all about the interview with Ryder, informed him of the discovery of the letters, and after explaining the nature of the work offered to her, said that her address for the next few weeks would be in care of John Burkett Ryder.  All was going better than she had dared to hope.  Everything seemed to favour their plan.  Her first step, of course, while in the Ryder home, would be to secure possession of her father’s letters, and these she would dispatch at once to Massapequa, so they could be laid before the Senate without delay.

So, after settling accounts with her landlady and packing up her few belongings, Shirley lost no time in transferring herself to the more luxurious quarters provided for her in the ten-million-dollar mansion uptown.

At the Ryder house she was received cordially and with every mark of consideration.  The housekeeper came down to the main hall to greet her when she arrived and escorted her to the suite of rooms, comprising a small working library, a bedroom simply but daintily furnished in pink and white and a private bathroom, which had been specially prepared for her convenience and comfort, and here presently she was joined by Mrs. Ryder.

“Dear me,” exclaimed the financier’s wife, staring curiously at Shirley, “what a young girl you are to have made such a stir with a book!  How did you do it?  I’m sure I couldn’t.  It’s as much as I can do to write a letter, and half the time that’s not legible.”