So we left them to be repaired, and as we came out, I said, “It will take us half an hour to get back to the hotel. Don’t you think we ought to go in somewhere and get just a little something to sustain us?”
“Of course we ought,” she said, in a weak voice. So we went in and got a light luncheon. Then we went back to the hotel, intending to lie down and rest after such an arduous day.
“We must not do this again,” I said, firmly. “Mamma told me particularly not to overdo.”
My companion did not answer. She was looking at the clock. It was just noon.
“Why, that clock has stopped too,” she said.
But as we looked into the reading-room that clock struck twelve. Then it dawned on me, and I dropped into a chair and nearly had hysterics.
“It’s because we are so far north!” I cried. “Our watches were all right and the sun’s all right. That is as high as it can get!”
She was too much astonished to laugh.
“And you had to go in and get luncheon because you felt so faint,” she said, in a tone of gentle sarcasm.
“Well, you confessed to a fearful sense of goneness yourself.”