Arthur did indeed think it over, every moment of that afternoon; and before going home he took a long walk alone.  He saw that Charles Whitney had proposed a secret partnership, in which he was to play Whitney’s game and, in exchange, was to get control of the Ranger-Whitney Company.  And what Whitney had said about the folly of board managements, about the insecurity of his own position, was undeniably true; and the sacrifice of the “smaller morality” for the “larger good” would be merely doing what the biographies of the world’s men of achievement revealed them as doing again and again.  Further, once in control, once free to put into action the plans for a truly vast concern, of which he had so often dreamed, he could give Tecumseh a far larger income than it had ever hoped to have through his father’s gift, and also could himself be rich and powerful.  To the men who have operated with success and worldly acclaim under the code of the “larger good,” the men who have aggrandized themselves at the expense of personal honor and the rights of others and the progress of the race, the first, the crucial temptation to sacrifice “smaller morality” and “short-sighted scruples” has always come in some such form as it here presented itself to Arthur Ranger.  The Napoleons begin as defenders of rational freedom against the insane license of the mob; the Rockefellers begin as cheapeners of a necessity of life to the straitened millions of their fellow-beings.

If Arthur had been weak, he would have put aside the temptation through fear of the consequences of failure.  If he had been ignorant, he would have put it aside through superstition.  Being neither weak nor ignorant, and having a human passion for wealth and power and a willingness to get them if he could do it without sacrifice of self-respect, he sat calmly down with the temptation and listened to it and debated with it.  He was silent all through dinner; and after dinner, when he and Madelene were in their sitting room upstairs, she reading, he sat with his eyes upon her, and continued to think.

All at once he gave a curious laugh, went to the writing table and wrote a few moments.  Then he brought the letter to her.  “Read that,” said he, standing behind her, his hands on her shoulders and an expression in his face that made his resemblance to Hiram startling.

She read: 

“MY DEAR MR. WHITNEY:  I’ve been ‘thinking it over’ as you suggested.  I’ve decided to plug along in the old way, between the old landmarks.  Let me add that, if you should offer to give your stock to Tecumseh now, I’d have to do my utmost to persuade the trustees not to take it until the company was once more secure.  You see, I feel it is absolutely necessary that you have a large pecuniary interest in the success of our plans.”

When Madelene had read she turned in the chair until she was looking up at him.  “Well?” she inquired.  “What does it mean?”

He told her.  “And,” he concluded, “I wish I could be a great man, but I can’t.  There’s something small in me that won’t permit it.  No doubt Franklin was right when he said life was a tunnel and one had to stoop, and even occasionally to crawl, in order to get through it successfully.  Now—­if I hadn’t married you—­”