tleman became excessively gallant, entreated his fair
visitor to remain where she was for a tiny instant until he could
descend and admit her, implored her with expansive gestures not on any
account to go away and blight his life. As the sweep of the arm and
the shrug of the shoulders betrayed only too plainly the fact that the
hospitable gentleman was very much in a state of nature, except for the
lather on his face, Esther took fright and bolted out of the gate,
inwardly execrating the Gallic race and their amorous propensities.
One more chance gone, she thought in a panic of dread, five minutes
more wasted. Oh! to think a simple matter like finding a telephone
should present so many difficulties!

Diagonally across the street loomed a large, modern apartment house of
familiar design. Without doubt there would be a telephone there, in
the loge of the concierge. Precipitately she darted across the street,
narrowly escaping a motor-cycle, and plunged into the court. She could
see the loge at the far end, up a flight of three shallow steps. Light
streamed out of the wide glass double doors so frequently seen in this
type of building; she aimed her faltering steps towards it as to a
beacon. Within the doors she saw a brightly lit, stuffy room
overcrowded with machine-carved furniture, the central table covered
with a red chenille cloth, on which lay a string-bag bursting with
vegetables and parcels. No soul was visible, but she spied the
telephone against the back wall. She opened the doors and went in, a
bell tinkling as she did so. From an inner room issued the sound of
voices laughing and gossiping. The door was shut, and no one troubled
at all to answer the summons.

She crossed hurriedly to the other door and opened it, disclosing a
domestic group, fit subject for one of the Dutch school paintings.
There was a neat, compact, black-clad woman with shining, immaculate
coiffure, an old, florid, bald-headed man sluggishly fat, and a youth,
long-limbed and pale, with the face of an apache and a dank lock of
black hair dipping into his eyes. The woman was peeling potatoes and
recounting a history, the old man smoked, and fondled a cat, the apache
lounged against the chimney with a cigarette dangling from his thin
lips. A dog slept on the hearth; there were two love-birds in a green
cage upon the wall.

"_S'il vous plait, madame----_"

The three turned instantly and regarded her, all merriment gone, their