"Then you're no more in New York when you're there than in Jericho," answered Peter. "You 've got to get into the game really to live in New York. You 've got to work and be one of the million others before you can get the feel of the city. Best of all, a man ought to marry there. You're married, are n't you, Covington?" "Eh?" "Did n't Beatrice tell me you registered here with your wife?" [Illustration: "Did n't Beatrice tell me you registered here with your wife?"] Monte moistened his lips. "Yes--she was here for a day. She--she was called away." "That's too bad. I hope we'll have an opportunity to meet her before we leave." "Thanks." "She ought to help you understand New York." "Perhaps she would. We've never been there together." "Been married long?" "No." "So you have n't any children." "Hardly." "Then," said Peter, "you have your whole life ahead of you. You have n't begun to live anywhere yet." "And you?" "It's the same with me," confessed Peter, with a quick breath. "Only--well, I haven't been able to make even the beginning you 've made." Monte leaned forward with quickened interest. "That's the thing you wanted so hard?" he asked. "Yes." "To marry and have children?" Monte was silent a moment, and then he added:-- "I know a man who did that." "A man who does n't is n't a man, is he?" "I--I don't know," confessed Monte. "I 've visited this friend once or twice. Did you ever see a kiddy with the croup?" "No," admitted Peter. "You're darned lucky. It's just as though--as though some one had the little devil by the throat, trying to strangle him." "There are things you can do." "Things you can try to do. But mostly you stand around with your hands tied, waiting to see what's going to happen." "Well?" queried Peter, evidently puzzled. "That's only one of a thousand things that can happen to 'em. There are worse things. They are happening every day." "Well?" "When I think of Chic and his children I think of him pacing the hall with his forehead all sweaty with the ache inside of him. Nothing pleasant about that, is there?" Peter did not answer for a moment, and then what he said seemed rather pointless. "What of it?" he asked. "Only this," answered Monte uneasily. "When you speak of a wife and children you have to remember those facts. You have to consider that you 're going to be torn all to shoe-strings every so often. Maybe you open the gates of heaven, but you throw open the gates of hell too. There's no more jogging along in between on the good old earth." "Good Lord!" exclaimed Peter. "You consider such things?" "I've always tried to stay normal," answered Monte uneasily. "Yet you said you're married?" "Even so, is n't it possible for a man to keep his head?" demanded Monte. "I don't understand," replied Peter. "Look here--I don't want to intrude in your affairs, but I don't suppose you are talking merely abstractedly. You have some one definite in mind?" "Yes."