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 instability and fate’s fondness for mischief, not upon the optimistic clouds of belief that everybody is good and faithful and friendly disposed and everything will “come out all right somehow.”  The instant Madelene suggested Whitney as the cause, Arthur’s judgment echoed approval; but, to get her whole mind as one gives it only in combating opposition, he continued to object.  “But suppose,” said he, “Whitney insists on selecting the new management?  As he’s the only one competent, how can they refuse?”

“We must find a way round that,” replied Madelene.  “It’s perfectly plain, isn’t it, that there’s only one course—­an absolutely new management.  And how can Mr. Whitney object?  If he’s not guilty he won’t object, because he’ll be eager to try the obvious remedy.  If he’s guilty he won’t object—­he’ll be afraid of being suspected.”