You were talking with Freda a little while ago. What did she want to learn? MAIL CARRIER _(Pausing only long enough to reply, and then going on to make exit to right.)_ Same thing as your wife--where I passed that girl's outfit. MRS. EPPINGWELL _(Quietly.)_ I knew it. CAPT. EPPINGWELL But why couldn't I go around, or you, and talk with Freda, explain the situation fully to her, and make an appeal to whatever good is in her? Mrs. Eppingwell _(Smiling.)_ You don't know women, Archie, _(Adding as an afterthought.)_ Well as women know women. No, she must be beaten at her own game. Flossie must arrive before midnight to-night. CAPT. EPPINGWELL But she camps at Mooseback. MRS. EPPINGWELL There are dogs in Dawson. Now, Archie, this is for you to do. Borrow a team of fresh dogs somewhere, put your Indian in charge of it, that one-eyed man, he's faithful, and start him up the trail to Flossie. Let her think Floyd Vanderlip has sent the dogs to bring her in right away. CAPT. EPPINGWELL _(Smiling.)_ Ah, I see. The impatience of the ardent and long-denied lover. MRS. EPPINGWELL _(Smiling in return.)_ And once Flossie is here and gets her arms around Floyd Vanderlip's neck, Freda Moloof will wait in vain at the water-hole. CAPT. EPPINGWELL That will settle it. Freda's not the woman to stand knocking her feet around a water-hole very long for any man. MRS. EPPINGWELL _(Good-naturedly. )_ You seem to know a great deal about what kind of a woman this dancer is. CAPT. EPPINGWELL I know enough about her, when it comes to Vanderlip and Flossie, to think her the best of the boiling... and to have a sneaking regret for her being beaten this way. MRS. EPPINGWELL You may be kind-hearted, Archie, but you are unwise. CAPT. EPPINGWELL _(Sighing.)_ Oh, well, after the manner of civilized man I submit to my womenkind. All right, I'll send the dogs at once. _(Makes a movement to start toward door to right, and Mrs. Eppingwell starts with him.)_ _(Mrs. Eppingwell, struck suddenly by a new idea, pauses. Capt. Eppingwell pauses a step in advance and looks at her.)_ What's wrong now? MRS. EPPINGWELL Suppose there is some mischance, a delay, and Flossie doesn't get in by midnight? CAPT. EPPINGWELL 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?