don't go quietly.
Later on in the evening, Pelagia is faced with a predicament: James is not here, and that 'phone' thing he has is ringing. On a whim, she decides to pick it up, figuring that if it's something terribly important and work-related they would have called him there, and frankly she's starting to get annoyed at staying inside so much, which leads to little acts like this. Soon she will have more proper clothes and be able to venture among the people of London, learning about them.
The man on the other line is slightly startled by her, especially by how she doesn't appear to have much phone etiquette; she's not anyone related to "Bouvier", or anything else he asks her about, and she doesn't have much of a concrete answer when he wonders when James started keeping women in his apartment.
Her reaction, however, is probably still informative.
"He is not keeping me," Pela is saying, indignantly, "I enlisted him."