Читать книгу: «The Best Policy», страница 9

AN INCIDENTAL COURTSHIP

Harry Renway was the kind of man that people refer to as “a simple soul.” He might feel deeply, but he did not think that way. As a matter of fact, it was stretching things a little to call him a man, for he was hardly more than a boy – a youth in years, but a boy in everything else. Nevertheless, it is worth recording that he was a reasonably thrifty boy, although his earning capacity had not permitted him to put aside anything resembling a fortune.

Love, however, visits the poor as well as the wealthy, the simple as well as the wise. Indeed, sometimes it seems as if Love rather avoids the wealthy and wise and chooses the companionship of less-favored mortals. So, perhaps, it is not at all extraordinary that Harry Renway was in love, and the object of his affections was one of the most tantalizing specimens of femininity that ever annoyed and delighted man.

She said frankly that she was mercenary, but it is probable she exaggerated. She had been poor all her life, but she had no dreams of great wealth and no ambition for it: she merely wanted to be assured reasonable comfort – that is, what seemed to her reasonable comfort. A really mercenary girl would have deemed it poverty and hardship. Somehow, when one has been poor and has suffered some privations, one learns to give some thought to worldly affairs, and it is to the credit of Alice Jennings that she did not grade men more exactly by the money standard. Harry’s modest salary would be sufficient to meet her requirements, but Harry had nothing but his salary. A larger salary might give something of luxury, in addition to comfort, but, assured the comfort and freedom from privation, she would be guided by the inclinations of her heart. So, perhaps, she was wise rather than mercenary. Love needs a little of the fostering care of money, although too much of this tends to idleness and scandal.

“But if anything should happen to you,” argued Alice, when Harry tried to tell her how hard he would work for her.

“What’s going to happen to me?” he demanded.

“I don’t know,” she answered lightly. “You’re a dear, good boy, Harry, and I like you, but I’ve had all the poverty I want.”

“Who’s talking about poverty?” persisted Harry stoutly. “I’ve got more than two hundred dollars saved up, and I’ll have a bigger salary pretty soon.”

“What’s two hundred dollars!” she returned. “We’d use that to begin housekeeping. Then, if anything should happen to you – Why, Harry, I’d be worse off than I am now. I don’t want much, but I’ve learned to look ahead – a little. I’ve neither the disposition nor the training to be a wage-earner, and I’ll never go back home after I marry. Dad has a hard enough time of it, anyhow.” There was raillery in her tone, but there was also something of earnestness in it. “Now, Tom Nelson has over two thousand dollars,” she added.

“Oh, if you’re going to sell yourself!” exclaimed Harry bitterly.

“I didn’t say I’d marry him,” she retorted teasingly, “but, if I did and anything happened to him – ”

“You’d probably find he’d lost it in some scheme,” put in Harry.

“He might,” admitted Alice thoughtfully, “but he’s pretty careful.”

“And too old for you,” added Harry angrily. “Still, if it’s only money – ”

“It isn’t,” she interrupted more seriously; “it’s caution. I’ve had enough to make me just a little cautious. You don’t know how hard it has been, Harry, or you’d understand. If you knew more of the disappointments and heartaches of some of the girls who are deemed mercenary, you wouldn’t blame them for sacrificing sentiment to a certain degree of worldliness. ’I just want to be sure I’ll never have to go through this again,’ says the girl, and she tries to make sure. It isn’t a question of the amount of money she can get by marriage, nor of silks or satins, but rather of peace and security after some years of privation and anxiety. She learns to think of the future, if only in a modest way – that is, some girls do. I’m one of them. What could I do – alone?”

“Then you won’t marry me?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then you will marry me?”

“I didn’t say that, either. There’s no hurry.”

Thus she tantalized him always. It was unfair, of course – unless she intended to accept him eventually. In that case, it was merely unwise. It is accepted as a girl’s privilege to be thus perverse and inconsistent in her treatment of the man she intends to marry, but sometimes she goes too far and loses him. However, Alice Jennings was herself uncertain. She had known Harry a long time, and she liked him. She had known Tom Nelson a shorter time, and she liked him also. It may be said, however, that she did not love either of them. Love is self-sacrificing and gives no thought to worldly affairs. Alice Jennings might have been capable of love, if she could have afforded the luxury, but circumstances had convinced her that she could not afford it, so she did not try. She would not sell herself solely for money, and her standard of comfort was not high, but she was trying hard to “like” the most promising man well enough to marry him. As far as possible, she was disposed to follow the advice of the man who said, “Marry for love, my son, marry for love and not for money, but, if you can love a girl with money, for heaven’s sake do so.”

As a natural result of her desire to make sure of escaping for all time the thraldom of poverty that was so galling to her, she was irresolute and capricious. She dressed unusually well for a girl in her position, but this was because she had taste and had learned to make her own clothes, so the money available for her gowns could be put almost entirely into the material alone. She was a capable housekeeper, because necessity had compelled her to give a good deal of time to housework in her own home. She had no thought of escaping all these duties, irksome as they were, but she did not wish to be bound down to them. A comfortable flat, with a maid-of-all-work to do the cooking and cleaning, and a sewing girl for a week once or twice a year, was her idea of luxury. This, even though there was still much for her to do, would give her freedom, and this, with reasonably careful management, either of the men could give her. But she looked beyond, and hesitated; she had schooled herself to go rather deeply into the future.

Tom Nelson found her quite as unreasonable and bewildering as did Harry. Tom was older and more resourceful than Harry, but he was not so steady and persistent. Harry was content to let his money accumulate in a savings’ bank, but Tom deemed this too slow and was willing to take risks in the hope of larger profits. He made more, but he also spent more, and, all else aside, it was a question as to whether Harry would not be able to provide the better home. Then, too, Tom occasionally lost money, while nothing but a bank failure could endanger Harry’s modest capital. So Tom had his own troubles with the girl. He knew her dread of poverty – amounting almost to a mania – and he made frequent incidental reference to his capital.

“But that isn’t much,” she said lightly. Her self-confessed mercenariness was always brought out in a whimsical, half-jocular way that seemed to have nothing of worldly hardness in it. “And there’s no telling whether you’ll have it six months from now,” she added. “As long as I had you to take care of me, it would be all right, but – ”

She always came back to the same point. Yet one of these two she intended to marry, her personal preference being for Harry, and her judgment commending Tom. The former would plod; the latter might be worth twenty thousand in a few years, or he might be in debt. Harry never would have much; Tom might have a great deal – enough to make the future secure, no matter what happened.

“Will you invest the money for me?” she asked.

“Why, no, – I must use it to make more.”

Thus she flirtatiously, laughingly, but with an undertone of seriousness, kept them both uncertain, while she impressed upon them her one great fear of being left helpless. Yet even in this her ambition was modest: no income for life, but only something for her temporary needs until she could adjust herself to new conditions, if that became necessary. Anything more than that was too remote for serious thought.

Harry finally told his troubles to a friend, when these exasperating conditions had continued for some time. He wanted consolation; he got advice.

“A little too worldly to suit me,” commented the friend. “Still, it might be better if some of the girls who marry hastily had just a little of such worldliness. There would be fewer helpless and wretched women and children.”

“That’s just it,” returned Harry. “She knows what it means, and that two thousand of Tom Nelson’s looks awful big to her. If I had as much I’d invest it for her outright, and that would settle it.”

“Doesn’t want it to spend, as I understand it?” queried the friend.

“Oh, no – just to know that she has something in case anything happens.”

“Why don’t you try life insurance?” asked the friend.

It took Harry a moment or two to grasp this. Then his face lighted up.

“By thunder! I never thought of that!” he cried.

“That’s the trouble with lots of men,” remarked the friend dryly. “Marriage is considered a dual arrangement when it should be a triple – man, woman and life insurance. That’s the only really safe combination. The thoughtful lover will see that the life insurance agent and the minister are interviewed about the same time.”

“Where did you learn all that?” asked the astonished Harry.

“Oh, it’s not original with me,” was the reply. “I heard Dave Murray talk about insurance once. He’s an enthusiast. He claims that the best possible wedding gift is a paid-up life insurance policy, and I guess he’s right. It would be a mighty appropriate gift from the groom’s father to the bride – a blame sight better than a check or a diamond necklace. A paid-up policy for five thousand would look just as big as a five-thousand-dollar check, and it wouldn’t cost nearly as much – unless the old man plans to sneak back the check before it can be cashed. And what a lot of good it might do at a time when the need may be the greatest! If the bride is the one to be considered in selecting a wedding gift, as I understand to be the case, what better than this?”

“I guess Dave Murray is the man for me,” said Harry in admiration of the originality of this idea.

“Of course he is,” asserted the friend. “And if you want to make the argument stronger for your wavering girl, get an accident insurance policy, with a sick benefit clause, also, and then take out a little old age insurance. There ought to be no trouble about giving her all the assurance necessary to allay her fears.”

Harry was a good risk, and he had no difficulty in getting a policy. He saw Murray personally, but, as he did not explain his purpose or situation, their conference was brief: Murray merely asked if he thought a thousand-dollar policy was all he could afford.

“Because,” said Murray, “when you go after a good thing it’s wise to take all you can of it. There ought to be enough so that something can be found after your estate is settled.”

“I’d make it five hundred if I could,” said Harry.

“Most of the good companies,” said Murray, “wisely protect a man from his own economical folly by refusing to issue a policy for less than a thousand.”

“It’s an experiment. A fellow doesn’t want to put too much money into an experiment.”

Murray, the resourceful Murray, was bewildered. Life insurance an experiment! Surely he could not mean that.

“Well,” he said, “your widow will be pretty sure to think the experiment a success.”

“I haven’t got a widow,” asserted Harry.

“Of course not; but you may have.”

“How can I have a widow when I am dead?” asked Harry. “How can I have anything when I am dead?”

“You can’t tell by the looks of an electric wire how highly it is charged,” mused Murray. “I guess I touched this one too recklessly.” Then to Harry: “But there may be a widow.”

“There may,” returned Harry.

“Well, she’ll be sorry you didn’t experiment on a larger scale, because it really isn’t an experiment at all. There’s only one thing surer than insurance.”

“What’s that?” asked Harry with interest.

“Death; and, with the popular gold bonds or any limited payment policy, you have a chance to beat death by some years. But suit yourself.”

So Harry took the physical examination and got the policy, payable to his estate. Then he promptly assigned it to Alice.

“There’s one thousand dollars sure, if anything should happen to me,” he said. “That beats any old elusive two thousand that Tom Nelson may have.”

“You’re a dear, good, faithful boy, Harry,” she said impulsively, and she gave him a kiss.

That was happiness enough for that day and the next, but on the third he began to get down to earth again and deemed the time propitious.

“You’ll marry me?” he suggested.

“Perhaps,” was her reply.

“Perhaps!” he cried. “It’s always perhaps.”

“Perhaps it won’t be always perhaps,” she returned.

In truth, she had wavered so long that she found it difficult to make up her mind. Besides, Tom was prospering, Tom was devoted, and Tom was a nice fellow. True, he was twenty-six while she was only eighteen, and Harry, at twenty, was nearer her own age, but – well, aside from any question of the future, it was rather nice to have two men so devotedly attentive. Then, too, Tom spent his money more freely, and she derived the benefit in present pleasures. There was no hurry; the future was now brighter, whichever she chose, and, things being so nearly equal, there was even less reason for haste. Alice, in addition to her dread of poverty, was a natural flirt: she enjoyed the power she exerted over these two men. But she said nothing to Tom of Harry’s latest move; perhaps she thought it would be unfair, or perhaps she was a trifle truer to Harry than to Tom.

Harry, in his “simple” way, misinterpreted this irresolution. He was too devoted to criticize; he had begun to understand her dread and to think that she was quite right in taking such a very worldly view of the situation. Why should she not, so far as possible, endeavor to make her future secure? It was for him to convince her of his thoughtfulness and his ability to provide for her. Thereupon he got an accident insurance policy.

“You’re awfully thoughtful, Harry,” she said. “I like you.”

“I don’t want you to worry,” said Harry, flattered and pleased.

“I’m not worrying,” she told him.

“But I am,” he retorted ruefully.

“Men,” she asserted, “are so impatient.”

Harry could not quite agree to this – he thought he had been wonderfully patient. In his straightforward way he began to ponder the matter deeply. It had seemed to him he was doing a wonderfully clever thing that ought to settle the matter definitely. Had he made a mistake? If so, what was necessary to rectify it? Incidentally, he heard that some of Tom Nelson’s little speculations had turned out favorably, and Tom was still quite as devoted as ever and seemed to be received with as much favor. Then to Harry came an idea – a really brilliant idea, he thought.

“Perhaps,” he told himself, “I ought not to have assigned that policy to her; perhaps I ought to have kept it in my control so that a wedding would be necessary to give her the benefit of it. As it is now, she has the policy, no matter whom she marries. I don’t think she would – ”

Without finishing the sentence, Harry knitted his brow and shook his head. It was not a pleasant thought – he told himself it was an unjust thought – but, as he had gone in to win, he might as well take every precaution. If the conditions were a little different, it might put an end to her flirtatious mood and compel a more serious consideration of his suit; it might have a tendency to emphasize his point and “wake her up,” as he expressed it. Possibly, it was just the argument needed.

With this in mind, he again called upon Murray.

“I’m in a little trouble,” he explained. “I ought to have had that policy made out to my wife.”

“It makes no difference, unless the estate is involved in some way,” explained Murray. “She’ll get it through – ”

“It makes a big difference,” interrupted Harry. “You see, I’ve got to get the wife.”

“What!” ejaculated Murray. “Say that again, please.”

“Why, if I had an insurance policy in favor of my wife, it would make it easier to get the wife, wouldn’t it?”

“Thunder!” exclaimed Murray. “I thought I was pretty well up on insurance financiering, but this beats me. Are you hanging an insurance policy up as a sort of prize package?”

“That’s it, that’s it!” cried Harry, pleased to find the situation so quickly comprehended. “The other fellow is worth more, but insurance looks bigger than anything else I can buy for the money, and I want to show her how much safer she will be with me than with him.”

“You’re all right,” laughed Murray, “but I’m afraid you’ll have to marry first. We can’t very well make a policy payable to a person who doesn’t exist, and you have no wife now. When you have one, bring the policy back if you’re not satisfied to have it payable to the estate, and – ”

“But she’s got it.”

“Who?”

“The girl. I assigned it to her, so she doesn’t have to marry me to get the benefit. That wasn’t good business.”

Murray leaned back in his chair and looked at the youth with amusement and curiosity.

“No,” he said at last, “that may have been good sentiment, but it wasn’t good business. And,” he added jokingly, “I don’t know that this transaction is quite legal.”

“Why not?” asked Harry anxiously.

“Well, we’re not allowed to give prizes, and, if a girl goes with the policy, it looks a good deal like a prize-package affair. I’m not sure that that wouldn’t be considered worse than giving rebates on premiums.”

“You’ve got the wrong idea,” argued Harry with solemn earnestness. “The girl doesn’t go with the policy, but the policy goes with me. At least, that’s what I intended.”

“Better try it again with another policy,” suggested Murray. “Make it payable to your estate, and then hang on to it until you get the girl. Let me give you a word of advice, too, although it’s not exactly to my interest.”

“Well?”

“Well, the policy that you gave to her doesn’t amount to much if you stop paying premiums on it. You might suggest that to her.”

“By George! I never thought of that!” exclaimed the youth. “I guess I haven’t much of a financial head.”

“Oh, you’re all right,” returned Murray. “You’re the first fellow I ever knew who made a matrimonial bureau of an insurance office. I’ve got something to learn about this business yet.”

With his second policy in his pocket, Harry reverted quite casually to the subject of insurance, although he had first taken the precaution to have a lot of insurance literature sent to Alice. From this she learned that nothing could quite equal it in making the future secure.

“I have decided,” said Harry in an offhand way, “that the best investment for a young man who has any one dependent upon him is life insurance. I have just taken out another policy for a thousand dollars.”

“How thoughtful of you!” exclaimed Alice.

“It’s on the twenty-year endowment plan,” explained Harry. “At the end of twenty years the whole sum may be drawn down or it may be left to accumulate. As provision for the future, I guess that makes any two or three thousand in the bank look like thirty cents.”

“You’re awfully good to me,” said Alice, for this apparent evidence of unselfish devotion, in addition to what had preceded it, really made her reproach herself for her capriciousness. But it was such jolly fun to keep two men anxious!

“The insurance,” Harry went on, “is payable to my estate.”

“What does that mean, Harry?” she asked.

“It means,” replied Harry, “that a girl has got to marry me to get a chance at it.”

“I always did like you, Harry.”

“Yes?”

“But you’re so impatient.”

Harry was beginning to develop a little strategical ingenuity.

“There is no need,” he said, “to make a secret of this. I’m not ashamed to have all the girls know that I am making proper provision for the one who becomes my wife.”

“Harry Renway,” exclaimed Alice, “if you make our private affairs a subject of public gossip I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live.”

Thereupon Harry demonstrated that he was not as “simple” as he was supposed to be, for he promptly returned the kiss that she had given him on a previous occasion. There could be no misinterpreting “our” private affairs.

“When?” he asked.

“Oh, pretty soon,” she replied, for the flirtatious instinct was still in evidence. Besides, under the circumstances, too much haste might be in poor taste. However, their friends were told of the engagement, and that was something. Tom Nelson was angry and disgusted.

“The fool!” he exclaimed. “A live man wants to have the use of his money, and he has tied himself up with insurance. That isn’t my way.”

“But he got the girl,” some one suggested.

“Not yet,” retorted Tom, “and you never can tell.”

In truth, it seemed as if Tom’s insinuation was almost prophetic, for Alice procrastinated and postponed in a most tormenting way, and Harry took it all in good part for two or three months. There was no particular reason for this delay, as the preliminaries of such a wedding as they would have could be arranged very quickly, and in time it tried the patience even of Harry.

“The semi-annual premium on that first policy is due the day after to-morrow,” he remarked one evening.

“Well?” she returned inquiringly.

“If the premium isn’t paid the policy lapses,” he went on.

“But you’ll pay it?”

“For my wife I will.”

She gave him a quick look and knew that he was not going to be swayed this time by her little cajoleries.

“But, Harry,” she protested, “that’s so – so soon.”

“I have the license in my pocket,” he said; “there’s a church within two blocks, and I saw a light in the pastor’s study as I came by. I guess we’ve waited long enough. Let’s go out for a little stroll.”

It was six months later that Harry again met Dave Murray, but Murray remembered him.

“Did you get the prize with your policy?” asked Murray.

“Sure,” replied Harry.

“Was it a good prize?”

“Bully!” said Harry. “A little hard to handle just at first, but you can do almost anything with insurance.”

“You certainly have made good use of it,” laughed Murray.

“You bet I have,” answered Harry with some pride. “Why, say! an insurance policy is the greatest thing in the world for family discipline.”

“For what!” exclaimed Murray.

“Family discipline. The first time we had a little rumpus she had me going seven ways for Sunday until I thought of the insurance policies. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘if I’m not the head of the house there’s no reason why I should be paying insurance premiums, and I’ll default on the next one. The head of the house looks after things of that sort,’ I told her, and that settled it. I’m the head of the house, and, if I don’t play it too strong, I’ve got the thing to maintain discipline.”

“Don’t you want another policy?” laughed Murray.

“Well,” returned Harry thoughtfully, “if I could get the same kind of prize with another, and if it wasn’t against the law, I rather think I might be tempted to do it. Anyhow, there can’t anybody tell me there’s nothing in insurance, for I know better.”