Betty saw Bob spring to his aid, saw Esther sink in a miserable
little white heap to the floor, Bobby put her hands up to her eyes as
if to shut out the light, and Louise mechanically try to defend
herself from the strangle hold of the woman who stood next to her. It
seemed minutes to Betty that the car was falling, and she watched the
others' behavior with a curious, semi-detached interest that was
oddly impersonal. One of the men passengers began to claw at the gate
frantically and the other kept muttering under his breath, softly and
steadily, biting off his words crisply and quite unconscious of what
he was saying. The woman who had clutched Louise was silent at first,
but her companion instantly screamed, and in a fraction of a second
she, too, was screaming.
Now Betty had never heard the sound of women in terror, and she was
unprepared for the wild anguish of those shrill voices.
The experience was terrifying, but it was all over very swiftly. The
mechanism jammed between the third and second floors and the elevator
came to a stop with a suddenness that jarred the teeth of the
passengers. It had begun to fall after leaving the seventh floor.
For a moment every one stared at every one else stupidly.
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