f Whitney. "Everything _looks_ all right, except
the totals on the balance sheets."

"We must talk this over with some one who knows more about the business
than either of us." Then he added, as if the idea had just come to him,
"Why not call in Arthur--Arthur Ranger?"

Scarborough looked receptive, but not enthusiastic.

"He has been studying this business in the most practical way ever since
his father died," urged Dory. "It can't do any harm to consult with him.
We don't want to call in outside experts if we can help it."

"If we did we'd have to let Mr. Whitney select them," said Scarborough.
And he drew Dory out upon the subject of Arthur and got such complete and
intelligent answers that he presently had a wholly new and true idea of
the young man whose boyish follies Saint X had not yet forgotten. "Yes,
let's give Arthur a chance," he finally said.

Accordingly, they laid the case in its entirety before Arthur, and he
took home with him the mass of reports which Scarborough had gathered.
Night after night he and Madelene worked at the problem; for both knew
that its solution would be his opportunity, _their_ opportunity.

It was Madelene who discovered the truth--not by searching the figures,
not by any process of surface reasoning, but by that instinct for motive
which woman has developed through her ages of dealing with and in
motives only. "They must get a new management," said she; "one that
Charles Whitney has no control over."

"Why?"

"Because he's wrecking the business to get hold of it. He wants the whole
thing, and he couldn't resist the chance the inexperience and confidence
of the other two gave him."

"I see no indication of it," objected Arthur, to draw her out. "On the
contrary, wherever he directly controls there's a good showing."

"That's it!" exclaimed Madelene, feeling that she now had her feet on
the firm ground of reason on which alone stupid men will discuss
practical affairs.

Arthur had lived with Madelene long enough to learn that her mind was
indeed as clear as her eyes, that when she looked at anything she saw it
as it was, and saw all of it. Like any man who has the right material in
him, he needed only the object lesson of her quick dexterity at stripping
a problem of its shell of nonessentials. He had become what the
ineffective call a pessimist. He had learned the primer lesson of large
success--that one must build upon the hard, pessimistic facts of human
nature's ins