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.”
AN INCIDENTAL QUESTION
Dave Murray, general agent, leaned back in his chair and looked thoughtfully at the young man before him.
“So you have run up against an unanswerable argument?” he remarked.
“It seems so to me,” said the inexperienced Owen Ross.
“My dear boy,” asserted Murray, “in the life insurance business the only unanswerable argument is a physician’s report that the applicant is not a good risk. What is the particular thing that has put you down and out?”
“Faith,” replied the young man; “just plain faith in the Almighty. Perhaps, some time in your career, you have run across a religious enthusiast who considers it a reflection on the all-seeing wisdom of the Almighty to take any measures for his own protection or the
