But I was obliged to break off the conversation for a moment and to make menacing gestures, for if Françoise continued⁠—as though it had been something as unpleasant as vaccination or as dangerous as the aeroplane⁠—to refuse to learn to telephone, whereby she would have spared us the trouble of conversations which she might intercept without any harm, on the other hand she would at once come into the room whenever I was engaged in a conversation so private that I was particularly anxious to keep it from her ears. When she had left the room, not without lingering to take away various things that had been lying there since the previous day and might perfectly well have been left there for an hour longer, and to place in the grate a log that was quite unnecessary in view of my burning fever at the intruder’s presence and my fear of finding myself “cut off” by the operator: “I beg your pardon,” I said to Andrée, “I was interrupted. Is it absolutely certain that she has to go to the Verdurins’ tomorrow?” “Absolutely, but I can tell her that you don’t like it.” “No, not at all, but it is possible that I may come with you.” “Ah!” said Andrée, in a tone of extreme annoyance and as though alarmed by my audacity, which was all the more encouraged by her opposition.