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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Cousin Betty by Honore de Balzac: much admired by the two younger women.
"Well, my dear Madame de Saint-Esteve," said Victorin, showing the
dreadful old woman into his study and carefully shutting the doors,
"how are we getting on?"
"Ah, ha! my dear friend," said she, looking at Victorin with cold
irony. "So you have thought things over?"
"Have you done anything?"
"Will you pay fifty thousand francs?"
"Yes," replied Victorin, "for we must get on. Do you know that by one
single phrase that woman has endangered my mother's life and reason?
So, I say, get on."
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