“What flowers?” asked Hinpoha wonderingly.
“The roses—pink ones—I sent you when you had the mumps.”
Hinpoha stared at him blankly, unbelievingly. No, no, it could not be true, the roses had come from her light-haired professor. “Did you send them?” she asked in a tone in which no one could have detected any degree of appreciation for the favor.
“Wasn’t there any card in the box?” asked the Captain. “I gave one to Mr. Forester to put in.”
“No,” answered Hinpoha, with a gulp, “there wasn’t; and I thought—somebody else sent them.”
“Didn’t you like them?” asked the Captain, feeling in the air that something was wrong somewhere. “Don’t you like roses?”
Hinpoha pulled herself together with an effort. Tears of disappointment were standing in her eyes. “Ye-es,” she answered politely, but without enthusiasm, “they were lovely; perfectly lovely.” And she ran hurriedly out of the corner, leaving the Captain staring after her in bewilderment.
“I don’t believe he sent them to me at all!” she told herself in the solitude of her own room that night. “The horrid thing found out that I got them and told me that just to tease me. Anyway, it doesn’t make a particle of difference about Professor Knoblock.” And she fell asleep whispering to herself with bated breath, “Tomorrow!”
She walked to school with lagging steps the next morning. Now that the great hour was at hand she was filled with a desire to flee. Then she heard footsteps behind her, and, glancing out of the corner of her eye, saw the professor approaching. With a wildly beating heart she walked on, her face straight to the front. He was coming. He was overtaking her. Now he was upon her. With a great effort she turned her head to look at him, her lips parted in a tremulous smile. Professor Knoblock raised his hat stiffly, nodded frigidly and passed on without a word, leaving Hinpoha staring after him stunned. Unseeingly she stumbled on to school. One question was racing back and forth in her mind like a shuttle in a loom—what was the meaning of it? Classes recited around her in school; she heard them as in a dream. Professor Knoblock did not look at her as she entered the Literature class room; he was taking two of the boys sharply to task for never being able to recite. Hinpoha sat with her eyes fixed on her book. Professor Knoblock was evidently ill-humored this morning, though apparently none the worse for his mishap the evening before. He was dealing out zero marks right and left if the recitations did not go like clock-work. And as was only to be expected the morning after such an elaborate affair as the dedication of a swimming pool, clock-work recitations were very few and far between.
The professor finally lost all patience. “Take your books,” he commanded, “open and study the lesson the remainder of the hour, and the first one I see dawdling or whispering will be sent back to the session room.” Hinpoha’s eyes followed the lines on the page, but she could not have told what she was reading. The question was still beating back and forth in her mind.