“Thirty thousand dollars of life insurance!” muttered Jonas, as he settled himself in a corner of the reading-room. “If we could have the use of that money for a year we would be all right.”
Jonas was a widower, but his wife had been living when he had taken out this insurance. Now it would go to the sons eventually, if they survived him, but, meanwhile, they would lose a fortune. Since the death of his wife, Jonas had given his every thought to the boys and their future. He reproached himself for the speculations that had deprived him of the power of helping them as he had planned in earlier days; he felt that somehow he had defrauded them. So deeply did he feel this that from the day he gave up his real estate business he never had put one dollar into a speculation of any kind, except so far as his investment in their business was a speculation.
“If we could make that go,” he mused, as he crouched miserably in the big chair, “I should be content. I owe it to the boys to see them fairly started. I was in a position to do it once and I lost the money foolishly—their money, by rights, for I had put it aside for them. And here am I, almost useless—a business wreck—too old to begin again as an employee and lacking the capital to be an employer or to do business of any sort for myself. Instead of helping my boys, I am to be a burden to them—until I die. I am of value only in the grave.” He shuddered and seemed to sink still lower in the chair. “It is my duty to do what I can for them,” he added. “I am useless, but life is before them—a continuation of my life. I must be a success through my sons.”
Benson, a friend, stopped near him.
“What’s the matter, Kalin?” asked Benson. “You look blue.”
Kalin looked up at Benson in a dazed way, and for a moment seemed to be unable to grasp the fact that he had been addressed.
“Benson,” he said at last, his eyes wandering dreamily about the room, “is a man ever justified in committing suicide?”
Benson was startled, but he replied promptly and emphatically, “Never.”
“Suppose,” Kalin went on, “that your life intervened between those you love and happiness; suppose that your life meant misery and failure for them, while your death meant success and—and comfort.”
Benson drew up a chair and placed his hand on Kalin’s arm as if to emphasize his words.