Part 15 (2/2)
”He's going to live to a green old age, just to spite the company,”
mused Murray. ”It's a matter of no great personal interest to him, but he'd like to make the company feel bad. If a man could order his life as he can his business affairs, there would be mighty little chance for us.”
Meanwhile, Tucker was hastening to the home of Miss Frances Greer.
”I've come to release you,” he announced cheerfully.
”But I don't want to be released,” she returned.
”Of course not,” he said. ”I didn't suppose you would. But you might just as well know that you're getting a poor risk.”
”What do you mean?” she asked.
”Why, I wanted to put fifty thousand dollars on my life, as a precaution for the future, and the fool of an insurance doctor turned me down.”
”What do I care about the doctor!” she exclaimed.
”Not a thing, of course.”
”Or insurance!”
”Still less.”
”And,” she said happily, ”you're a good enough risk for me.”
Then they went into executive session and decided that insurance doctors didn't know anything, anyway. But they did not forget Dave Murray, and they did not let Dave Murray forget them: he heard from them indirectly in the most annoying ways. His wife informed him less than a week later that she had met Miss Greer at a reception.
”A most extraordinary girl!” his wife remarked. ”I can't understand her at all. She asked me in a most ingenuous way if I ever had noticed any indications of heart murmur about you.
”'Never,' said I.
”'Not even in the engagement days when he was making love?' she insisted.
”'Not even then,' I answered, bewildered.
”'He couldn't have been much of a lover,' she remarked.”
Murray laughed and explained the situation to his wife. But Murray would have been better pleased if the two women had not met, for he had no desire to have this case perpetually present in the more intimate a.s.sociations of life. However, he had to make the best of it, even when he was invited to the wedding, to which his wife insisted that he should go. She had discovered that the bride was related to an intimate friend of her own girlhood days, and the bride further showed flattering gratification in this discovery. She was especially gracious to Murray.
”I want to ask you a question,” she told him.
Thereupon Murray made heroic efforts to escape before she could find a suitable opportunity, but she beckoned him back whenever he got near the door.
”Mama,” she said finally, for this happened during the wedding reception, and her mother stood near her, ”I wish you would take charge of Mr. Murray and see that he doesn't run away. I have something very important to say to him before Ralph and I leave.”
Thus the unhappy Murray was held until the bride and groom were ready to depart, when the bride finally succeeded in getting him alone for a minute.
”I wanted to ask you, as a particular favor to me,” she said appealingly, ”to let Ralph live a little while-that is, if your doctor won't make too big a row about it.”
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