“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.”