“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.”