As they do so, she quietly enters from the terrace, where she has been listening. Both men accuse her of having deceived and betrayed them. She responds that she is expecting one or the other to marry her. Raoul loses his temper, accuses Esteban of being a traitor and a hypocrite, and slaps his face. This leads to a duel; Raoul sends Hubert to fetch a rapier, the furniture is pushed back, and Esteban draws his sword. Eloise sits at the side on a spinet, eating an orange and urging the combatants on ("Really, considering your joint ages, you're doing magnificently!"). When she decides they have fought enough, she throws an embroidered cloth over their blades and commands them to stop. Esteban is still angry, but she tells him that if he slaps Raoul's face it will be a "quid pro quo" and honour will be satisfied. He does so, lightly, and bursts out laughing. The two men embrace. Having reconciled them, Eloise reveals that she has never been married – they were the only two men in her life, and for the past sixteen years she has lived an entirely virtuous existence – "in this depraved age it's rather humiliating to admit it" – earning a successful living as a singer. Her reason for leaving Esteban was to prevent his family from disinheriting him and ruining his career; she left Raoul because he never once suggested marriage to her. Esteban chivalrously offers her his hand; Eloise makes no immediate reply, and Raoul suddenly exclaims that he loves her. He walks out to the terrace. Esteban is plainly relieved that her choice will fall on Raoul. She kisses him good night, and he leaves them. Eloise sits down at the spinet and begins to play, as Raoul comes in again. He tells her, "I mean what I said. I do love you", and she replies that it has "been obvious since the first moment I came into the house". He rests his head on her shoulder as the curtain falls. The theatre critic of "The Morning Post" called the play "a very amusing and well-constructed piece … the first of Mr. Coward's plays to have a good first act". His only complaint about the piece was the love scene between Adrienne and Jacques: "Mr Coward still cannot write an effective love scene; his imagination is defeated when he cannot be flippant about the mating of true lovers.