Jefferson went up the grand staircase hung on either side with fine old portraits and rare tapestries, his feet sinking deep in the rich velvet carpet.  On the first landing was a piece of sculptured marble of inestimable worth, seen in the soft warm light that sifted through a great pictorial stained-glass window overhead, the subject representing Ajax and Ulysses contending for the armour of Achilles.  To the left of this, at the top of another flight leading to the library, was hung a fine full-length portrait of John Burkett Ryder.  The ceilings here as in the lower hall were richly gilt and adorned with paintings by famous modern artists.  When he reached this floor Jefferson was about to turn to the right and proceed direct to his mother’s suite when he heard a voice near the library door.  It was Mr. Bagley giving instructions to the butler.

The Honourable Fitzroy Bagley, a younger son of a British peer, had left his country for his country’s good, and in order to turn an honest penny, which he had never succeeded in doing at home, he had entered the service of America’s foremost financier, hoping to gather a few of the crumbs that fell from the rich man’s table and disguising the menial nature of his position under the high-sounding title of private secretary.  His job called for a spy and a toady and he filled these requirements admirably.  Excepting with his employer, of whom he stood in craven fear, his manner was condescendingly patronizing to all with whom he came in contact, as if he were anxious to impress on these American plebeians the signal honour which a Fitzroy, son of a British peer, did them in deigning to remain in their “blarsted” country.  In Mr. Ryder’s absence, therefore, he ran the house to suit himself, bullying the servants and not infrequently issuing orders that were contradictory to those already given by Mrs. Ryder.  The latter offered no resistance, she knew he was useful to her husband and, what to her mind was a still better reason for letting him have his own way, she had always had the greatest reverence for the British aristocracy.  It would have seemed to her little short of vulgarity to question the actions of anyone who spoke with such a delightful English accent.  Moreover, he dressed with irreproachable taste, was an acknowledged authority on dinner menus and social functions and knew his Burke backwards—­ altogether an accomplished and invaluable person.

Jefferson could not bear the sight of him; in fact, it was this man’s continual presence in the house that had driven him to seek refuge elsewhere.  He believed him to be a scoundrel as he certainly was a cad.  Nor was his estimate of the English secretary far wrong.  The man, like his master, was a grafter, and the particular graft he was after now was either to make a marriage with a rich American girl or to so compromise her that the same end would be attained.  He was shrewd enough to realize that he had little chance to get what he wanted in the