But she could not get him to work for a living. He wouldn't even keep office hours. Lecturing settled nothing. Lecturing a youth in a black and gold blazer, duck trousers and a silk shirt and a red sash, with socks and hat to match his coat, lecturing a youth who plays the mandolin while you talk, and looks at you through hazel eyes with all the intelligence of an affectionate pup, lecturing a youth who you know would be kissing you at the moment if you weren't twenty pounds heavier and twice as strong--someway doesn't arouse enthusiasm. So Morty Sands remained a problem. Now an affair of the heart when a man is in his twenties and a girl is just passing out of her teens, is never static; it is dynamic and always there is something doing. It was after one of Morty's innumerable summer dances in the Sands Opera House, that Fate cast her dies for the final throw. Morty had filled Laura Nesbit's program scandalously full. Two Newports, three military schottisches, the York, the Racket--ask grandpa and grammer about these dances, ye who gyrate in to-day's mazes--two waltz quadrilles and a reel. And when you have danced half the evening with a beautiful girl, Fate is liable to be thumping vigorously on the door of your heart. So Morty walking home under a drooping August moon with Laura Nesbit that night determined to bring matters to a decision. As they came up the walk to the Nesbit home, the girl was humming the tune that beat upon his heart, and almost unconsciously they fell to waltzing. At the veranda steps they paused, and his arm was around her. She tried to move away from him, and cuffed him as she cried: "Now Morty--you know--you know very well what I've always--" "Laura--Laura--" he cried, as he held her hand to his face and tried to focus her soul with his brown eyes, "Laura," he faltered, then words deserted him: the fine speech he had planned melted into, "O, my dear--my dear!" But he kept her hand. The pain and passion in his voice cut into the girl's heart. She was not frightened. She did not care to run. She did not even take his persisting arm from about her. She let him kiss her hand reverently, then she sat with him on the veranda step and as they sat she drew his arm from her waist until it was hooked in her arm, and her hand held his. "Oh, I'm in earnest to-night, Laura," said Morty, gripping her hand. "I'm staking my whole life to-night, Laura. I'm deadly--oh, quite deadly serious, Laura, and oh--" "And I'm serious too, Morty," said the girl--"just as serious as you!" She slipped her hand away from his and put her hand upon his shoulder gently, almost tenderly. But the youth felt a certain calmness in her touch that disheartened him.