“But I wouldn’t want the insurance on your life,” he urged.
“Do you think I’m any more mercenary than you?” she retorted. “I don’t want the insurance, either; I want you—when you’re nice to me.”
“We’ll think it over,” he said wearily.
“I’ve thought,” she returned decisively. “If it’s such a good thing, I think you’re mean not to let me share it with you.” Then, with sudden cheerfulness: “It would be rather jolly and exciting to go together, just as we go to the theater and—and—all other amusements.”
He laughed at her classification of life insurance among the pleasures of life, and then he kissed her again. Her unreasoning opposition distressed him, but resentment was quite out of the question. There was momentary exasperation, and then a little love-making, to bring the smiles back to her face. All else could wait.
It is a noteworthy fact, however, that life insurance takes a strong hold on a man the moment he really decides he ought to have it, and opposition only adds to his determination. He who finds that, because of some unsuspected physical failing, he can not get it, immediately is possessed with a mania for it. So long as he considered it within his reach, he turned the agents away; now he goes to them and lies and pleads and tries desperately to gain that which he did not want until he found he could not get it.
Thus, in a minor degree, the opposition of Beckford’s wife served only to impress on Beckford’s mind the necessity and advantage of some such provision for the future. Perhaps the explanation of this is that in trying to convince her he had convinced himself. At any rate, the subject, at first taken up in a desultory way, became one of supreme importance to him, and he went to see Dave Murray. Dave, he was solemnly informed by a friend who claimed to know, probably had been christened David, but the last syllable of the name had not been able to stand the wear and tear of a strenuous life, in addition to which Murray was not the kind of man to invite formality. He was “Dave” to every one who got past the “Mr. Murray” stage, and it never took long to do that. “Anyhow,” his informant concluded, “you have a talk with him. There isn’t a better fellow or a more upright man in the city. The only thing I’ve got against him is that he’ll insure a fellow while he isn’t looking and then make him think he likes it. But if you want insurance, go to him.” So Beckford went, and presently he found himself telling Murray a great deal more than he had intended to tell him.
“The fact is,” he explained, “my wife was violently opposed to the idea at first.”
“Not unusual,” said Murray, and then he added sententiously: “Wives don’t care for insurance, but widows do.”
Beckford smiled as he saw the point.