When George Cabot, Sr., owner of Cabots Fifth Avenue department store, learns that his son, George, Jr., has eloped with cabaret performer Marcelle La Verne, and that Marcelle's lawyer wants a cash settlement to end the marriage, he threatens to have bodyguards take his son to his Oklahoma ranch. George escapes down the department store's fire escape and sees through a window Kristina Nielson, an employee, ice-skating on the store's rink. After George slips on the ice, Kristina helps him to his apartment, where Marcelle sees them and endeavors to get Kristina's name as a co-respondent. A fortune-teller then suggests that George get Kristina to leave New York, and he convinces his father and the board of directors to send Kristina to Plymouth University as a student with a multitude of winter outfits to encourage the girls to shop at Cabots. Kristina agrees, but at the college, she makes an enemy of Dorothy, one of her roommates, because of the interest Kristina shows in Larry Taylor, Dorothy's beau. Dorothy then borrows Kristina's clothes and has the boys wear them during a tryout for the winter ice carnival, during which they sing an insulting song about Kristina. After Larry convinces Kristina not to leave, she ice-skates and wins the students' respect and affection. Her talent is the subject of a Life magazine cover story, which Marcelle sees. After Marcelle names Kristina in the divorce suit, the college dean suspends her. Larry and Kristina find Marcelle in New York, and sympathizing with Kristina, whom she is convinced is innocent, Marcelle says that if George will pay her $50,000 in cash, she will tell the newspapers that Kristina is innocent. George cannot pay, but when Larry suggests that he combine the ice carnival with a fashion show at the department store, George, whose father is in Havana, arranges it. The carnival is a great success, Cabot, Sr. returns and gives his son a bonus to pay Marcelle, and Kristina returns with Larry to P.U.