“I don’t like to hear you say that, Basil,” she entreated.

“Well, of course there were mitigating circumstances.  I could see that Fulkerson meant to keep the whip-hand himself, and that was reassuring.  And, besides, if the Reciprocity Life should happen not to want my services any longer, it wouldn’t be quite like giving up a certainty; though, as a matter of business, I let Fulkerson get that impression; I felt rather sneaking to do it.  But if the worst comes to the worst, I can look about for something to do in Boston; and, anyhow, people don’t starve on two thousand a year, though it’s convenient to have five.  The fact is, I’m too old to change so radically.  If you don’t like my saying that, then you are, Isabel, and so are the children.  I’ve no right to take them from the home we’ve made, and to change the whole course of their lives, unless I can assure them of something, and I can’t assure them of anything.  Boston is big enough for us, and it’s certainly prettier than New York.  I always feel a little proud of hailing from Boston; my pleasure in the place mounts the farther I get away from it.  But I do appreciate it, my dear; I’ve no more desire to leave it than you have.  You may be sure that if you don’t want to take the children out of the Friday afternoon class, I don’t want to leave my library here, and all the ways I’ve got set in.  We’ll keep on.  Very likely the company won’t supplant me, and if it does, and Watkins gets the place, he’ll give me a subordinate position of some sort.  Cheer up, Isabel!  I have put Satan and his angel, Fulkerson, behind me, and it’s all right.  Let’s go in to the children.”

He came round the table to Isabel, where she sat in a growing distraction, and lifted her by the waist from her chair.

She sighed deeply.  “Shall we tell the children about it?”

“No.  What’s the use, now?”

“There wouldn’t be any,” she assented.  When they entered the family room, where the boy and girl sat on either side of the lamp working out the lessons for Monday which they had left over from the day before, she asked, “Children, how would you like to live in New York?”

Bella made haste to get in her word first.  “And give up the Friday afternoon class?” she wailed.

Tom growled from his book, without lifting his eyes:  “I shouldn’t want to go to Columbia.  They haven’t got any dormitories, and you have to board round anywhere.  Are you going to New York?” He now deigned to look up at his father.

“No, Tom.  You and Bella have decided me against it.  Your perspective shows the affair in its true proportions.  I had an offer to go to New York, but I’ve refused it.”

IV