“Surely,” acquiesced Wentworth. “I am thinking of the little woman and the baby.” He settled back in his chair and smoked dreamily for a few moments, his thoughts evidently wandering to the home that had given him so much of happiness during the last eighteen months. And Murray was silent, too. The affair was as much one of friendship as of business with him. It had been largely a joke when he had first declared that he would write a policy on Wentworth’s life, although he believed implicitly that every man should have insurance and should get it when he is young enough to secure a favorable rate. At that time Wentworth had no one dependent upon him, but Murray had kept at him in a bantering way, telling him that he would surely have need of insurance later and that he had better prepare for it while the opportunity offered. Then, when celibacy seemed to have become a permanent condition with him, he had married, and thereafter, while still treating the subject lightly and humorously, Murray had conducted a campaign that was really founded on friendship. No one knows better than a man who has been long in the insurance business of the tragedies resulting from procrastination and neglect; no one can better appreciate how great a risk of such a tragedy a friend may be running. So Murray, jolly but insinuating, was actuated by something more than purely business interest when he made whimsical references to his long campaign in the presence of Mrs. Wentworth and incidentally, apparently only to tease her husband, described some of the sad little dramas of life that had come to his notice. And he had won at last.
“Get the application ready,” said Wentworth, suddenly rousing himself, “and let me know when your doctor wants to see me.”
That evening Wentworth told his wife that he had arranged to take out a twenty-five-thousand-dollar policy, and she put her arms around his neck and looked up at him in an anxious, troubled way.
“You don’t think I’m mercenary, do you, Stanley?”
“Indeed, I don’t, little woman,” he replied, as he kissed her; “I think you are only wise.”
“It seems so sort of heartless,” she went on, “but you know I’m planning only for the baby. There is something sure about life insurance, and everything else is so uncertain. Some of the stories Mr. Murray told were very sad.”
“Oh, Murray was after business,” he said with a laugh. “He told me long ago that he intended to insure me, and it’s been a sort of friendly duel with us ever since. But he has convinced me that he is right in holding that every married man should carry life insurance, and, aside from that, I would cheerfully pay double premiums to relieve you of any cause for worry. The insurance company is going to get the best of me, though: I’ll live long enough to pay in more than it will have to pay out.”
“Of course you will!” she exclaimed confidently. “You’re so big and strong it seems foolish—except for the baby. That’s why we mustn’t take any chances.”
So cheerful and confident was Wentworth that he failed to notice the solemnity of the physician who examined him the next day. The doctor began with a joke, but he ended with a perplexed scowl.
“You certainly look as strong as a horse,” he said. “But you’re not,” he added under his breath.