little muddled. "What 's to-day?" he said it easily. Then he saw a look on her face.
There is a rank in society in which to forget the day of the week has a very definite connotation—it means … it means something wrong with the Brain. Like a flash an avenue of salvation was suggested to the hunted man by Mrs. Randle's look. He could lose those few days! They could disappear from his life—utterly—and with them that accursed business of the Green Overcoat and the fatal cheque-book it had hidden in its man-destroying folds!
In the very few seconds which creative work will take under the influence of hope and terror, the scheme began to elaborate itself in the narrow mind of the poor, persecuted don. He flopped down upon a chair, paused suddenly in the vigorous rubbing of his face with the towel, passed his hand over the baldness of his forehead, and muttered vacantly—
"Where am I?"
"You 're here, sir! Oh, you 're here!" said good, kind Mrs. Randle in an agonised tone, positively going down upon her knees (no easy thing when religion has departed with youth) and laying one hand upon his knee.
