She liked Jefferson immensely--more, perhaps, than any man she had yet met--and she did not think any the less of him because of her resolve not to get entangled in the meshes of Cupid.

In any case he had not asked her to marry him--perhaps the idea was far from his thoughts.
Meantime, she could enjoy his friendship freely without fear of embarrassing entanglements.
When, therefore, she first conceived the idea of portraying in the guise of fiction the personality of John Burkett Ryder, the Colossus of finance whose vast and ever-increasing fortune was fast becoming a public nuisance, she naturally turned to Jefferson for assistance.

She wanted to write a book that would be talked about, and which at the same time would open the eyes of the public to this growing peril in their midst--this monster of insensate and unscrupulous greed who, by sheer weight of his ill-gotten gold, was corrupting legislators and judges and trying to enslave the nation.

The book, she argued, would perform a public service in awakening all to the common danger.

Jefferson fully entered into her views and had furnished her with the information regarding his father that she deemed of value.