She saw the woman's gaze, hard and curious, take in the details of her appearance, from her muddy shoes up to her blood-stained cheek.
"I've had an accident—je viens d'avoir un petit accident," she explained hurriedly. "Il faut que je téléphone immédiatement."
The concierge's face cleared slightly.
"Pour chercher un médecin, sans doute?" she suggested. "Bien—voici le téléphone."
Gratefully Esther thanked her and took down the receiver in her trembling hand. The operator failed to understand her accent; she repeated the number three or four times without success, and was on the point of bursting into tears when the concierge possessed herself of the receiver and delivered the number for her, crisply and precisely.
"Voilà, mademoiselle," she announced in triumph, and returned to her potatoes.
There followed a long wait. From the other room Esther could hear the family group discussing her in subdued voices, her strange aspect, her evident weakness. They hazarded guesses as to how she had received her injuries. The old man was positive that the lady's lover had been chasing her with a knife; the wound on her face was a proof of it, in his opinion.
A series of buzzings, tappings and clinkings came over the wire, with hints of far-distant unintelligible conversation. This continued while with agonised eyes Esther watched the hands of the big clock on the wall creep from five minutes past seven to eleven past. Still no connection. At last the operator, remote and chill as the top of the Tour Eiffel, informed her that there was no reply. With French born of desperation Esther cried, "Sonnez encore! Sonnez toujours! Je suis sûre qu'il y a quelqu'un la!" Then recommenced the mysterious commotion on the line, which, before, led to nothing.
"Oh, God! oh, God!" she breathed hysterically. "It will be too late, it may already be too late! Oh, God, help me, make them answer!"
She was dimly aware that the apache was lounging in the doorway, using a toothpick and examining her with interest. The voices from the inner room had ceased; everyone was listening, but she did not care. All at once a click louder than those preceding told her she had been put through at last. Hope leapt within her. Alas! It suffered an immediate extinction, when she found herself au courant of a conversation between two people of opposite sexes, a dalliance flirtatious in character, interspersed with laughter and snatches of song. Three times she lowered the hook, three times she raised it to find herself still listening to the idiotic babble—"Tu ne m'aimes pas? Hein? Pourquoi pas?"—laughter—"Quand j'ai regardé le couleur de ton nes l'autre soir, j'étais complètement bouleversé, j' t'assure!"—"Ah, formidable!" then another shrill cackle. It was beyond endurance.