"Be serious, Basil. I'm in earnest."

"Serious? If I were any more serious I should shed tears. Come, my dear,
I know what you mean, and if I had my heart set on this thing--Fulkerson
always calls it 'this thing' I would cheerfully accept any sacrifice you
could make to it. But I'd rather not offer you up on a shrine I don't
feel any particular faith in. I'm very comfortable where I am; that is, I
know just where the pinch comes, and if it comes harder, why, I've got
used to bearing that kind of pinch. I'm too old to change pinches."

"Now, that does decide me."

"It decides me, too."

"I will take all the responsibility, Basil," she pleaded.

"Oh yes; but you'll hand it back to me as soon as you've carried your
point with it. There's nothing mean about you, Isabel, where
responsibility is concerned. No; if I do this thing--Fulkerson again? I
can't get away from 'this thing'; it's ominous--I must do it because I
want to do it, and not because you wish that you wanted me to do it. I
understand your position, Isabel, and that you're really acting from a
generous impulse, but there's nothing so precarious at our time of life
as a generous impulse. When we were younger we could stand it; we could
give way to it and take the consequences. But now we can't bear it. We
must act from cold reason even in the ardor of self-sacrifice."

"Oh, as if you did that!" his wife retorted.