Holmes spoke seriously, and with evident truth. Dick leaned back, staring curiously at his chum, though he did not ask the latest girl's name.
"At least, I was engaged, at latest accounts," Greg went on, after a few moments. "By the time I reach West Point, just as likely as not, I'll get a letter asking me to consider the matter as past history only."
"Greg, Greg!" muttered Prescott, shaking his head gravely. "I'm afraid you're not very constant.
"I?" retorted Cadet Holmes indignantly. "Dick, you're harboring the wrong idea. It's the girls who are not constant. Though they were all nice little bits of femininity," Greg added reminiscently in a tone of regret.
Late in the afternoon the chums arrived in New York. After putting up at a hotel they had time for dinner and a stroll.
"Somehow, I don't feel very sporty tonight," sighed Cadet Holmes, as they waited, at table, for the evening meal to be served. "Yet, in a week, I suppose I'll be kicking myself. For tomorrow we're due to get back into our gray habits and re-enter the military convent life up the river."
After a late supper and a short night's rest, the two young men found themselves, the morning following, on a steamboat bound up the Hudson River.
"After all these weeks of good times," muttered Greg, "it doesn't seem quite real."
"It will, in a couple of hours," predicted Prescott, smiling. "And, now that home is so far behind, I'm really delighted to think that I'll soon be back in gray old barracks, donning the same old gray uniform."
"Oh, it will be all right. There are a lot of fellows that I'm eager to see" Greg admitted.