and it had become his religion--the only one, in fact, that he
had. He was never pious like his father, a fact much regretted by
his mother, who could see nothing but eternal damnation in store
for her son because he never went to church and professed no
orthodox creed. She knew him to be a good lad, but to her simple
mind a conduct of life based merely on a system of moral
philosophy was the worst kind of paganism. There could, she
argued, be no religion, and assuredly no salvation, outside the
dogmatic teachings of the Church. But otherwise Jefferson was a
model son and, with the exception of this bad habit of thinking
for himself on religious matters, really gave her no anxiety. When
Jefferson left college, his father took him into the Empire
Trading Company with the idea of his eventually succeeding him as
head of the concern, but the different views held by father and
son on almost every subject soon led to stormy scenes that made
the continuation of the arrangement impossible. Senator Roberts
was well aware of these unfortunate independent tendencies in John
Ryder's son, and while he devoutly desired the consummation of
Jefferson's union with his daughter, he quite realized that the
young man was a nut which was going to be exceedingly hard to
crack.

"Hello, senator, you're always on time!"

Disturbed in his reflections, Senator Roberts looked up and saw
the extended hand of a red-faced, corpulent man, one of the
directors. He was no favourite with the senator, but the latter
was too keen a man of the world to make enemies uselessly, so he
condescended to place two fingers in the outstretched fat palm.