Both
words and minutes seemed a circle without beginning or end. It was
most odd and strange--this feeling of endlessness that was everywhere
in the air. And, long before Tim had got even to the middle of his
enormous speech, he had forgotten all about the fire, forgotten about
dancing, about burning things, forgotten about everything everywhere,
because his roving eye had fallen again upon the--clock. The clock
absorbed his interest. It lay there glittering in the sunshine beside
Maria. It wasn't going; Maria wasn't going either. It had stopped. He
realised abruptly, realised it without rhyme or reason, that a stopped
clock, a clock that isn't going, was a--mystery.
And the tide of words dried up in him; he choked; something was wrong
with the universe; for if the clock stopped--_his_ clock--time--time
must--he was unable to think it out--but time must surely get muddled
and go wrong too.
And he moved over to Maria just as she was about to burst into tears.
He sat down beside her. At the same moment Judy and Uncle Felix,
thinking a quarrel was threatening, stopped their dancing, and joined
the circle too. They stood with arms akimbo, panting, silent, waiting
for something to happen so that they could interfere and set it right
again.
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