"O, it's a pretty good place," said Gleason, and then nothing loath to talk, particularly when Marjorie made the inquiries, he launched into a dazzling word picture of Yale and her glories. At the end of ten minutes he had made such progress with Marjorie that she readily accepted his invitation to take a promenade with him. From that moment the affairs of the Yale-Harvard track team, and even the more intimate concerns of his roommate began to decline from the zenith of his attentions. Marjorie was in the ascendency. It was on the second day out that Frank Armstrong, noticing the Codfish's absence, had asked him where he kept himself, and was not at all satisfied with the answer he got. "The Codfish sitting around, thinking! Never!" said Frank to himself. And shortly after, Frank had ocular demonstration as to the real trouble. He met Codfish and Marjorie, and the former was so much absorbed that he didn't even see his roommate. "By Jove!" cried Frank. "Wait till I see him!" When the Codfish turned up that night in the stateroom, Frank pounced upon him. "So you've been sitting around, thinking, have you?" "Sure thing, thinking what I'd do next. I say, Frank, she's a pippin. Billie's an awful bore, but his kid sister is a peach, believe me!" "I thought you were an out-and-out woman-hater." "I used to be in my younger days," said the Codfish, earnestly, "but this Marjorie girl has certainly got me going. Some eyes, boy, some eyes." "So, that's why you've been neglecting your poor roommate, is it? I thought you came over here to see that I had good attention and kept in training. I might be at almost anything, even enjoying a pipe in the smoking room with John Hasbrouck as far as you are concerned." "I guess you will be all right looking after yourself. Now in Marjorie's case--" he had reached the point already of calling her "Marjorie," and he lingered a little over the name--"in Marjorie's case, it is different. She needs a strong arm to lean on," and the Codfish stretched his legs out luxuriously. "And you are furnishing the arm?" "Precisely." "And how about her father and mother and even her brother? They have no protecting arms, I suppose?" "Frank, they don't understand her. She seems quite alone. This is in confidence, Frank,--she's going to go on the stage as soon as she's through school. She'd make a hit, I tell you! She has great ambition, that girl has!" "And what does her mother say about the stage?" "O, just laughs at her, has no conception of the depths of that girl's nature. I doped her out for myself soon as I saw her. Frank, old chap, I love her!" At this astounding piece of intelligence Frank howled with laughter. "All right, go ahead and laugh, but I tell you this is serious. Say, Frank, you wouldn't mind if I went on to Paris with the Hasbroucks, would you? You won't need me for anything. I'll get back to London for the meet maybe."