The stumble in her step and her subsequent alarm does not go unmissed. He keeps her in his periphery without facing her directly. Something contained within that answer startled or otherwise unsettled her, though the specifics remain somewhat beyond him.

He keeps his tone neutral, as if such obvious things were entirely beyond the scope of his notice. "Gloria."

He waves an equivocal hand in the direction of the tables stretched out throughout the room.

"Our gracious host has something against alcohol, it seems," Nicholas says wryly. He thinks he might have intended to drink himself into a state in which he could be beyond the state of caring, but the assertion seems far too vague to have been a recent idea.