Katherine had been poking about in a corner of the room during the preliminary wail. She now came forward carrying a box in her hand which she laid on Hinpoha’s knee.
“What’s this?” asked Hinpoha.
“Open it and see,” advised Katherine.
Hinpoha complied and there fell into her lap a long, curling, red ringlet and a piece of paper written over in Hinpoha’s hand.
“I have a confession to make,” said Katherine, striking a dramatic attitude. “I put that note into your book asking for the lock of hair, and watched until you put it into the dictionary. Then I took it out after you left the room. I wrote the notes that followed to keep the ball rolling. I don’t believe Professor Knoblock knows a thing about his great romance with you.”
“You did it!” cried Hinpoha blankly, turning fiercely upon Katherine. “You made such a fool out of me that I’ll never be able to show my face again as long as I live. You—you——” sobs choked her and cut off all utterance.
“But the flowers,” gasped Gladys, “who sent them?”
“Captain did, the mean old thing!” sobbed Hinpoha.
“But the Key, and the Horoscope, and the Fortune Teller,” continued Gladys, “they all said he would be the one. I don’t see how it could have come out any other way.”
Katherine rose from her knees and rapped on the table for attention. “Girls,” she said seriously, “I suppose you think it was a very unkind and low-down sort of joke I played on Hinpoha, getting her all worked up like that with those notes, and under ordinary circumstances it would have been. But isn’t there a saying somewhere ‘that awfully sick people need awfully strong medicine,’ or something to that effect? Here you all were gone completely loony—excuse the expression, but it’s just what you were—gone perfectly loony about this fortune-telling business. You did it so much that I actually believe you began to think it was true. Then that fool fortune-teller told Hinpoha about the light-haired man that was coming into her life soon, and when the new professor arrived you all thought he was the one. I just happened to find out soon after he came that he was engaged to Miss Snively. I knew if I told you then you wouldn’t believe it, so I waited until it came out. But I was afraid Hinpoha would do something really silly before she got through, and decided to take a hand in the game myself. When I wrote that note about the hair I was sure she would see through it and come to her senses. The fact that she swallowed it shows how far out of her right mind she was. I never believed she would put a lock of hair into the dictionary. But when she seemed to take it all for gospel truth I couldn’t resist the temptation to go on and have some more fun.”