Then Freda wins.
MRS. EPPINGWELL
(Decisively.)
No, she doesn't.
(Thinks for a moment.)
Floyd Vanderlip is coming to the ball. I'll see that he comes. I'll be very nice to him and watch him closely so that he does not sneak away. If Flossie fails to arrive, say by half-past eleven, I'll be taken ill, and I'll ask Vanderlip to take me home; and I'll hold him, no matter how terribly ill or terribly nice I have to be, until midnight is well past or until Flossie arrives.
CAPT. EPPINGWELL
Then it's my duty to disappear about the time you are taken ill.
MRS. EPPINGWELL
Archie, though I tell you for the thousandth time, you are a perfect dear. And I can be as terribly nice as I please to Floyd Vanderlip?