Naturally, when Harry Beckford married he began to take a more serious
view of life. If there is anything at all of thoughtfulness and
consideration in a man, marriage brings it out: he begins to plan. He
has some one dependent upon him, some one for whom he must provide. That
he should trust to luck before was solely his affair; that he should
trust to luck now is quite another matter.
In the case of Beckford, as in the cases of most other young men, this
feeling was of gradual growth. He was optimistic and happy; his future
looked long and bright; he had ample time in which to accumulate a
comfortable fortune; but--he wasn't even beginning. He and his wife so
enjoyed life that they were spending all he made. It wasn't a large sum,
but it was enough to make them comfortable and contented, enough to give
them all reasonable pleasures. Later--he thought of this only in a hazy,
general sort of way--they would begin to save. There was plenty of time
for this, for they were both young, and he had proved himself of
sufficient value to his employer to make his rapid advancement
practically certain. The employer was a big corporation, the general
manager of which had taken a deep personal interest in him, and the
opportunities were limitless.
But the feeling of responsibility that came to him with marriage
gradually took practical form, perhaps because the girl who sat opposite
him at the breakfast-table was so very impractical. She was loving,
lovable, delightfully whimsical, but also unreasoningly impractical in
many ways. Before marriage she never had known a care; after marriage
her cares were much like those of a child with a doll-house--they gave
zest to life but could be easily put aside. If the maid proved
recalcitrant, it was annoying, but they could dine at a restaurant and
go to the theater afterward, and Harry would help her with breakfast the
next morning. Harry was so awkward, but so willing, that it all became a
huge joke. Harry had not passed the stage where he would "kiss the cook"
in these circumstances, and an occasional hour in the kitchen is not so
bad when there is a fine handsome young man there, to be ordered about
and told to "behave himself." So even marriage had not yet awakened
Isabel Beckford to the stern realities of life.
It was her impracticalness, her delightful dependence, that finally
brought Harry to the point of serious thought. What would she do, if
anything happened to him? Her father had been successful but
improvident: he would leave hardly enough for her mother alone to live
in modest comfort; and, besides, Harry was not the kind of youth to put
his responsibilities on another. He began to think seriously about
cutting expenses and putting something aside, even at this early day.
The really successful men had begun at the beginning to do this. Then
there came to his notice the sad case of Mrs. Baird, who was left with
nothing but a baby. Baird had been a young man of excellent promise and
a good income, but he had left his widow destitute. He had put nothing
aside, intending, doubtless, to begin that later.
"Just like me," thought Harry, as he looked at his girl-wife across the
table.
"Isn't it frightful?" she asked, referring to the little tragedy
contained in the item he had just read to her from the morning paper.
"Every one thought the Bairds were so prosperous, too."
"Every one thinks we are prosperous," he commented thoughtfully.
"Oh, that's different!" she exclaimed. "You mustn't talk like that or
you'll make me gloomy for the whole day! Why, it sounds as if you were
expecting to die!"
"Not at all," he replied, "but neither was Baird."
"Please don't!" she pleaded. "I shan't have another happy minute--until
I've forgotten what you said."
He laughed at the ingenuousness of this and blew her a kiss across the
table; but he did not abandon the subject.
"Baird was a young man," he persisted, "but, with a little care and
forethought, he could have left things in fair shape."
"Perhaps we ought to be saving a little," she admitted in a tone of
whimsical protest. "I'll help you do it, if you just won't make me
blue."
"He hadn't even life insurance," he remarked, "and neither have I."
"Oh, not insurance!" she cried. "I wouldn't like that at all."
"Why not?" he asked.
"Why--why, think how much you could do with the money you'd be paying to
the old life insurance company!"
"Wouldn't it be just the same if you were saving it?" he argued.
"Oh, no; not at all," she asserted. "Why, you can get money that you're
saving whenever you want it, but life insurance money is clear out of
your reach."
"A policy has a cash surrender value," he explained. "Every cent paid in
premiums adds to its value, if you want to give it up."
"But then you lose the insurance," she argued with feminine
inconsistency.
"Of course," he admitted, "just as you lose your savings when you spend
them."
"Oh, but you can get at your savings easier, and it's easier to start
again, if you happen to use them," she insisted.
"The very reason why life insurance is better for us," he said. "I want
to make sure of something for you that we're certain not to touch while
I live."
But she took the unreasonable view of insurance that some young women do
take, and refused to be convinced.
"If I should die first," she said, with a little shudder at the very
thought of death for either of them, "all the money you'd paid the
company would be wasted."
"Not necessarily," he returned. "There might be--"
"Hush!" she interrupted, blushing so prettily that he went over and
kissed her. Then he dropped the subject temporarily, which was the
wisest thing he could have done. She had the feminine objection to
paying out money for which she got no immediate return, but she wanted
to please her husband. She was capricious, imperious at times and then
meekly submissive--a spoiled child who surrendered to the emotion of the
moment, but whose very inconsistencies were captivating. So when she
decided that victory was hers, she also decided to be generous: to
please him she would make a concession.
"I've changed my mind about insurance," she told him a few days later.
As a matter of fact, she had changed her mind, but not her opinions: she
was not convinced, but she would please him by accepting his plan--with a
slight modification.
"I knew you would see the wisdom of it!" he exclaimed joyously.
"How much insurance did you plan to get?" she asked, with a pretty
assumption of business ways.
"Ten thousand dollars," he replied.
"Well, we'll divide it," she said, "and each get five thousand dollars."
"You mean that you'll be insured, too?" he asked doubtfully.
"Of course. Isn't my life worth as much as yours?"
"More! a thousand times more!" he cried, "but--but--"
Her eyes showed her indignation, and he stopped short.
"You don't want me to be insured!" she exclaimed hotly. "You don't think
I'm worth it!"
"Why, dearest," he protested, "you're worth all the insurance of all the
people in the world, but it isn't necessary in your case. It's my
earning capacity that--"
Unfortunate suggestion! There was an inference that she considered
uncomplimentary.
"Haven't I any earning capacity?" she demanded. "Don't I earn every cent
I get? Isn't the home as important as the office?"
"Surely, surely, darling, but--"
"Doesn't a good wife earn half of the income that she shares?" she
persisted.
"More than half, sweetheart."
"Don't say 'sweetheart' to me in the same breath that you tell me I'm
not worth being insured!" she cried. "It's positively insulting,
and--and--you always said you loved me."
Her voice broke a little, and he was beside her in an instant.
"You don't understand," he explained. "Insurance has nothing to do with
your value to me or my value to you, but there is a more worldly value--"
"Oh, you're of some account in the world and I'm not!" she broke in, her
indignation driving back the tears.
"Isabel, you're simply priceless to me!"
"But, if I hadn't happened to meet you, I suppose I'd be a nonentity!"
she flashed back at him. "I'm just a piece of property that you happen
to like, and--why, Harry Beckford, men insure property, don't they?"
"Of course, but--"
"And I'm not worth insuring, even as property!" she wailed. "Oh, I
didn't think you could ever be so cruel, so heartless! You might at
least let me think I'm worth something."
The young husband was in despair. He argued, pleaded, explained in vain;
she could only see that he put a value on his life that he did not put
on hers, and it hurt her pride. Besides, they were partners in
everything else, so why not in insurance?
"But I wouldn't want the insurance on your life," he urged.
"Do you think I'm any more mercenary than you?" she retorted. "I don't
want the insurance, either; I want you--when you're nice to me."
"We'll think it over," he said wearily.
"I've thought," she returned decisively. "If it's such a good thing, I
think you're mean not to let me share it with you." Then, with sudden
cheerfulness: "It would be rather jolly and exciting to go together,
just as we go to the theater and--and--all other amusements."
He laughed at her classification of life insurance among the pleasures
of life, and then he kissed her again. Her unreasoning opposition
distressed him, but resentment was quite out of the question. There was
momentary exasperation, and then a little love-making, to bring the
smiles back to her face. All else could wait.
It is a noteworthy fact, however, that life insurance takes a strong
hold on a man the moment he really decides he ought to have it, and
opposition only adds to his determination. He who finds that, because of
some unsuspected physical failing, he can not get it, immediately is
possessed with a mania for it. So long as he considered it within his
reach, he turned the agents away; now he goes to them and lies and
pleads and tries desperately to gain that which he did not want until he
found he could not get it.
Thus, in a minor degree, the opposition of Beckford's wife served only
to impress on Beckford's mind the necessity and advantage of some such
provision for the future. Perhaps the explanation of this is that in
trying to convince her he had convinced himself. At any rate, the
subject, at first taken up in a desultory way, became one of supreme
importance to him, and he went to see Dave Murray. Dave, he was solemnly
informed by a friend who claimed to know, probably had been christened
David, but the last syllable of the name had not been able to stand the
wear and tear of a strenuous life, in addition to which Murray was not
the kind of man to invite formality. He was "Dave" to every one who got
past the "Mr. Murray" stage, and it never took long to do that.
"Anyhow," his informant concluded, "you have a talk with him. There
isn't a better fellow or a more upright man in the city. The only thing
I've got against him is that he'll insure a fellow while he isn't
looking and then make him think he likes it. But if you want insurance,
go to him." So Beckford went, and presently he found himself telling
Murray a great deal more than he had intended to tell him.
"The fact is," he explained, "my wife was violently opposed to the idea
at first."
"Not unusual," said Murray, and then he added sententiously: "Wives
don't care for insurance, but widows do."
Beckford smiled as he saw the point.
"It doesn't do a widow much good to care for insurance, if she objected
to it as a wife," he suggested.
"It may," returned Murray. "It isn't at all necessary that a wife should
know what's coming to her when she becomes a widow. She may be provided
for in spite of herself."
"That would be rather difficult in my case," said Beckford, "for my wife
knows just what my salary is, and we plan our expenditures together.
It's a pretty good salary, but we have been living right up to the limit
of it, so I can't provide for premiums without her knowledge, although I
can do it easily with it."
"That complicates matters a little," remarked Murray.
"Besides," Beckford added, "we have been so frank with each other that I
should be unhappy with such a life-secret, and, if I acted on my own
judgment and took the policy home to her, she says she would tear it up
and throw it away."
"I knew a woman to do that once," said Murray reflectively. "Her husband
insured his life before going on the excursion that ended in the
Ashtabula disaster. A few days later her little boy came in to ask if
anything could be done about the policy that she had destroyed."
"I don't think Isabel would really destroy it," said the troubled
Beckford, "but it would distress her very much to have me go so contrary
to her wishes in a matter that we had discussed."
"It would distress her very much to be left penniless," remarked Murray.
"I think," said Beckford thoughtfully, "I really think, if I had known
that she was going to take this view of the matter, I would have insured
myself first and talked to her about it afterward. Then the situation
wouldn't be so awkward. But I thought that all women favored life
insurance."
"Not at first," returned Murray, "but usually there comes a change."
"When?" asked Beckford hopefully.
"When they begin to think of the needs and the future and the possible
hardships of the first baby," replied Murray, whereat Beckford blushed a
little, even as his wife had done a few days before, for young people do
not consider and discuss prospective family problems with the same
candor that their elders do.
"Woman, the true woman," Murray continued, "is essentially unselfish;
she thinks of others. Careless for her own future, she plans
painstakingly for those she loves. The insurance premium that is for her
own benefit she would rather have to spend now, but you never hear her
object to the investment of any money that is to benefit her husband or
children, even when she has to make sacrifices to permit it."
"But that doesn't help me," complained Beckford. "I don't want any
insurance on her life; I don't need it, and there is no reason to think
that I ever shall need it. It's for her that I am planning, but she
won't listen to anything but this dual arrangement."
"I quite understand the situation," returned Murray. "What insurance you
are able to take out must be to protect her."
"Precisely; and I never knew before that a woman could be so
unreasoningly wilful in opposition to her own interests."
"My dear sir," said Murray, with some feeling, "you have a great deal to
learn about women. I have more than twenty thousand dollars charged up
to them in commissions that I have lost, after convincing the men
interested. But if I can help you to provide for this one perverse
sample of femininity, in spite of herself, I shall feel that I have
taken a Christian revenge on the whole sex." Beckford rather objected to
this reference to his wife, but there was nothing of disrespect in the
tone, and somehow the quaintness of the sentiment made him smile.
"I wonder," Murray went on, "if we could refuse the risk without
frightening her."
"I'm afraid not," returned Beckford, "but"--and a sudden inspiration
lighted his face, "couldn't you put in some restrictions that would
frighten her away?"
Murray leaned back in his chair and gave the matter thoughtful
consideration. Somehow he had become unusually interested in this young
man's effort to do a wise and generous thing for his wife in the face of
her opposition. If the man had been seeking to gain some benefit for
himself, Murray would not have listened to even a suggestion of deceit.
But the aim was entirely unselfish, and Beckford had brought a letter of
introduction that left no doubt as to his responsibility and integrity.
Then, too, the situation was amusing. Here were two business men
plotting--what? Why, the welfare of their opponent, and that only.
"So many women have beaten me," said Murray at last, "that I should
really like to beat one of them, especially when it's for her own good.
Bring your wife up here, and I'll see what I can do."
But here again feminine capriciousness was exemplified. Having
apparently won her point, Isabel Beckford began to wish she had lost it.
"I'm afraid," she said. "Suppose I should find that something frightful
was the matter with me? Those insurance doctors are awfully particular,
and--and--I'd rather not know it, if I'm going to die very soon."
"Oh, very well," acquiesced her husband. "We'll go back to my original
plan and put the whole ten thousand dollars on my life."
"No, no, no!" she protested. "It would be even worse, if I learned that
there was anything wrong with you. I couldn't bear it, Harry; I
couldn't, really! There wouldn't be anything left in life for me. Let's
not go at all."
"That's foolish, Isabel," he argued. "I'm all right, and the very fact
that I am accepted as a good risk will remove every doubt."
"That's so," she admitted. "We'll be sure, then, won't we?"
"Of course."
"Then we'll both go," she announced, with a sudden reversal of judgment.
"I hadn't thought of it that way, but I'll feel a lot better and
stronger when I'm insured, because the companies are so particular, and
it will be comforting to know that you are all right. It's worth
something to find that out, isn't it? And sometimes a family physician
won't tell you the truth, because it won't do any good and he doesn't
want to frighten you. We'll go right away and see about it now."
"Hardly this evening," he answered, smiling, although he was sorely
troubled. "We'll go to-morrow afternoon."
"But it's so long to wait until to-morrow," she pouted.
He regretted the delay quite as much as she did, for his experience up
to date led him to think that there might be another change. First she
had refused to consider the matter at all; then she had insisted they
should go together; after that she had backed out; next she had demanded
he should give up the idea, also; and now she was again determined it
should be a joint affair.
"No man," he muttered, as he dropped off to sleep, "knows anything about
a woman until he marries, and then he only learns enough to know that he
knows nothing at all."
Then he mentally apologized to his wife for even this mild criticism,
and dreamed that, through some complication, he had to insure the cook
and the janitor and the grocer's boy before he could take out a policy
on his own life, and that, when he had attended to the rest, he had no
money left for his own premiums, so he made all the other policies in
favor of his wife and hoped to thunder that the cook and the janitor and
the grocer's boy would die a long time before he did.
However, she was still of the same mind the next day, so they went to
see Murray.
"Of course," she said, as they were on the way, "if this thing wrecks
our happiness by showing that the grave is yawning for either of us, it
will be all your fault."
That made him feel nice and comfortable--so nice and comfortable that he
heartily wished he never had mentioned life insurance. Still, he cheered
up a little when Murray took charge of matters in a masterly, confident
way.
"I understand, Mrs. Beckford," said Murray, "that both you and your
husband wish to have your lives insured."
"Yes," she replied, "and for some reason he has selfishly wanted to put
all the insurance we can afford on his own life."
"So he has told me."
"What right had he to discuss family matters with you?" she demanded
with asperity.
Thus Murray was jarred out of his air of easy confidence the first
thing.
"Why--why, he didn't exactly tell me," he explained, "but my experience
enabled me to surmise as much. Most men are like that."
"I never thought Harry would be," she said, looking at him
reproachfully. "But it's all right now," she added.
"Yes, it's all right now," repeated Murray. He had intended to argue
first the advisability of accepting her husband's plan, but he deemed it
unwise. He had suddenly lost faith in his powers of persuasion, so he
resorted to guile. "Of course, you understand that life insurance is
hedged about by many annoying restrictions," he went on.
"I didn't know it," she returned.
"Oh, yes," he said glibly, with a wink at Beckford. "Do you use gasoline
at all?"
"Why, I have used it occasionally to take a spot out of a gown," she
admitted.
"Barred!" asserted Murray.
"I can't do even the least little mite of cleaning with gasoline!" she
exclaimed in dismay.
"None at all! It's dangerous! Might just as well fool with
nitroglycerin. People who handle it at all become careless."
There were indications of a rising temper. That a mean old insurance
company should have the audacity to tell her what she could or could not
do was an outrage!
"And you can't use street-cars," added Murray.
"Can't use street-cars!" she cried. "What will Harry do?"
"Oh, that rule doesn't apply to men," returned Murray calmly, "for men
don't get off the cars backward and all that sort of thing. Street-cars
are considered, in our business, a danger only for women."
"Well, it's a hateful, insulting, unfair business!" she cried, rising in
her indignation. "I wouldn't let such a contemptible lot of people
insure me for anything in the world."
"But please don't blame me," urged Murray insinuatingly. "I want to do
the best I can for you."
"Oh, I don't blame you," she returned magnanimously.
"I admit that it sounds unfair," Murray persisted, "but there was a time
when we wouldn't take risks on women at all, so, even with the
restrictions, it's quite a concession."
"Oh, very likely, very likely," she admitted, "but I have too much pride
to accept any such humiliating conditions. Harry can do as he pleases,"
with dignity, "but nothing could induce me to be insured now. I'm going
home."
Harry took her to a cab, and then returned to Murray's office.
"Well, it's settled," said Murray, with a sigh of relief.
"Yes, it's settled," returned Beckford, "but I don't feel just
comfortable about it."
"She sort of bowled me over the first thing," commented Murray. "I
haven't quite recovered yet. But it's her welfare that we're
considering. Better put in your application and take the examination
before there are any more complications."
"Perhaps that's wise," admitted Beckford gloomily, for he was not at all
at ease about the matter. She had said he could do as he pleased, but
there had been something in her tone that was disquieting; she might
think there was disloyalty in his patronage of a company that had so
offended her. And this was the first cloud that had appeared in the
matrimonial sky; in all else there had been mutual concession and
perfect agreement.
He was thinking of this when he went home--and found her in tears.
"I know what's the matter," she wailed. "I didn't think of it at first,
but I did afterward, and I've been crying ever since. I have heart
trouble; that's why he didn't want to give me a policy."
"Nonsense!" he protested vigorously.
"Oh, I know it! I know it!" she cried. "He didn't want to tell me, so he
put in all that about street-cars and gasoline. But it's heart trouble
or consumption! Those insurance men are so quick to see things that no
one else notices. Why, I could see that he was worried the very first
thing!"
Beckford got on his knees beside the bed on which she was lying and
tried to comfort her, but she was inconsolable. He insisted that she was
the strongest and healthiest woman of her size in the world; that he
knew it; that Murray himself had commented on it later; that the company
physician, who happened to be in the outer office as they passed
through, had spoken of it; that even the clerks were impressed; but he
failed to shake her conviction that she had some fatal, and hitherto
unsuspected, malady. Finally, assuring her that he would have that
matter settled in thirty minutes, he rushed to the nearest cab-stand and
gave the driver double fare to run his horse all the way to Murray's
house.
Murray was just sitting down to dinner, but Beckford insisted that he
should return with him immediately.
"You've got to straighten this matter out!" he told him excitedly.
"You've got to give her all the insurance she wants without any
restrictions! Make it fifty thousand dollars if she wants it! I'll pay
the premiums, if we have to starve!"
"But I can't give her a policy to-night!" protested Murray.
"You can tell her about it to-night, can't you?" demanded Beckford. "And
you can take her application to-night, can't you? Why, man, she has
convinced herself that she's going to die in a week! We can settle the
details later, but we've got to do something to-night."
"Oh, well, I'll come immediately after dinner," said Murray.
"You come now!" cried Beckford. "If you talk dinner to me, I'll brain
you! Insurance has made a wreck of me already."
"I haven't been getting much joy out of this particular case myself,"
grumbled Murray, but he went along.
The moment he reached home, Beckford rushed to his wife's room.
"It's all a mistake!" he exclaimed joyfully. "You--you mustn't cry any
more, dearest, for it's all right now. Mr. Murray didn't understand at
first--thought you were one of these capricious, careless, thoughtless
women that do all sorts of absurd and foolish things on impulse--but he
knows better now. There aren't any more restrictions for you than for
me, and he's waiting in the parlor to take your application for all the
insurance you want."
"Really?" she asked, as the sobs began to subside.
"Really."
"And there isn't anything the matter with me?"
"Of course not, sweetheart."
"Well," she said, after a pause, "I can't see him now, because my eyes
are all red, but I wish he'd write that out for me. I'd feel so much
more comfortable."
"Indeed he will," asserted Beckford, "and we can fill out the
application in here, and I'll take it back to him."
Hopefully and happily the young husband returned to Murray and told him
what was wanted. Murray sighed dismally. He had missed his dinner for a
woman's whim, and the woman was merely humiliating him. Still, he felt
in a measure responsible for the trouble; he ought never to have
resorted to duplicity, even for so laudable a purpose. So he wrote the
following: "Investigation has convinced me that the restrictions
mentioned this afternoon are unnecessary in your case, and I shall be
glad to have your application for insurance on the same terms as your
husband's."
Mrs. Beckford read this over carefully. Then she read the application
blank with equal care. After that she wrote at the bottom of the note:
"Insurance has almost given me nervous prostration now, and I don't want
to have anything more to do with it. If Harry can stand the strain, let
him have it all."
"Give him that, Harry," she said, "and get rid of him as soon as
possible, for I want you to come back and comfort me. I'm completely
upset."
Murray lit a cigar when he reached the street, and puffed at it
meditatively as he walked in the direction of the nearest street-car
line.
"What's the matter with nervous prostration for me?" he muttered. "One
more effort to defeat a woman who is fighting against her own interests
will make me an impossible risk in any company; two more will land me in
a sanatorium."