Hargrave was one of those few men who are respected without any reservation, and whose respect is, therefore, not given up without a sense of heavy loss.  But to explain would be to risk rousing in him an even deeper anger—­anger on account of his friend Whitney; so, without another word, Scarborough bowed and went.  “Either he will be apologizing to me at the end of three months,” said he to himself, “or I shall be apologizing to Whitney and shall owe Tecumseh a large sum of money.”

* * * * *

Both Madelene and Arthur had that instinct for comfort and luxury which is an even larger factor in advancement than either energy or intelligence.  The idea that clothing means something more than warmth, food something more than fodder, a house something more than shelter, is the beginning of progress; the measure of a civilized man or woman is the measure of his or her passion for and understanding of the art of living.

Madelene, by that right instinct which was perhaps the finest part of her sane and strong character, knew what comfort really means, knew the difference between luxury and the showy vulgarity of tawdriness or expensiveness; and she rapidly corrected, or, rather, restored, Arthur’s good taste, which had been vitiated by his associations with fashionable people, whose standards are necessarily always poor.  She was devoted to her profession as a science; but she did not neglect the vital material considerations.  She had too much self-respect to become careless about her complexion or figure, about dress or personal habits, even if she had not had such shrewd insight into what makes a husband remain a lover, a wife a mistress.  She had none of those self-complacent delusions which lure vain women on in slothfulness until Love vacates his neglected temple.  And in large part, no doubt, Arthur’s appearance—­none of the stains and patches of the usual workingman, and this though he worked hard at manual labor and in a shop—­was due to her influence of example; he, living with such a woman, would have been ashamed not to keep “up to the mark.”  Also her influence over old Mrs. Ranger became absolute; and swiftly yet imperceptibly the house, which had so distressed Adelaide, was transformed, not into the exhibit of fashionable ostentation which had once been Adelaide’s and Arthur’s ideal, but into a house of comfort and beauty, with colors harmonizing, the look of newness gone from the “best rooms,” and finally the “best rooms” themselves abolished.  And Ellen thought herself chiefly responsible for the change.  “I’m gradually getting things just about as I want ’em,” said she.  “It does take a long time to do anything in this world!” Also she believed, and a boundless delight it was to her, that she was the cause of Madelene’s professional success.  Everyone talked of the way Madelene was getting on, and wondered at her luck.  “She deserves it, though,” said they, “for she can all but raise the dead.”  In fact, the secret