They went upstairs to the damp, desolate sun parlor, and he undertook at once the business in hand.
"It has n't worked very well, has it, Marjory?" he began, with a forced smile.
Turning aside her head, she answered in a voice scarcely above a whisper:—
"No, Monte."
"But," he went on, "there's no sense in getting stirred up about that."
"It was such a—a hideous mistake," she said.
"That's where you're wrong," he declared. "We've tried a little experiment, and it failed. Is n't that all there is to it?"
"All?"
"Absolutely all," he replied. "What we did n't reckon with was running across old friends who would take the adventure so seriously. If we'd only gone to Central Africa or Asia Minor—"
"It would have been just the same if we'd gone to the North Pole," she broke in.