midnight
`` She 's so impossibly headstrong , '' deplored Mrs. Jervaise . Her husband shook his head impatiently . `` There is a limit to this kind of thing , '' he said . `` She must be made to understand -- _ I _ will make her understand that we draw the line at midnight adventures of this kind . '' Mrs. Jervaise and Olive agreed warmly with that decision , and the three of them drew a little apart , discussing , I inferred , the means that were to be adopted for the limiting of the runaway , when she returned . But I was puzzled to know whether they were finally convinced of the truth of the theory they had so readily adopted . Were they deceiving , or trying very hard , indeed , to deceive themselves into the belief that the whole affair was nothing but a prank of Brenda 's ?