“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.