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.