Talk to Nolle About the Card
As much as you want to ask about that perfect Dress, you instead guess that the most natural thing to ask about would be the Card.
Nolle moves gradually in a way that seems to gently pull you toward a sort of W’drawing Room and causes you to sit down on a Chaise Longue without really realizing that you are doing so.
Anise, fakecasually: “These names are the others? You said they were already asleep?”
Nolle: “Yes, I stayed up…”, just then realizing that this will make it seem like you did something wrong by being so Dreadfully Late.
You do the thing where you say you are sorry that someone had to do something like stay up late on your behalf and then they say no it’s fine because they would have anyway and you say no no no it’s your fault and you’re sorry and &c. &c. &c. Which is a dumb tiring dance but you do it.
Really you don’t pay all that much attention to what you’re saying, and most of what Nolle is saying does not seem to have much Infocontents and instead consists largely of Politespeaxness. You could both sit here all night, talking the whole time, without getting to know anything about one another.
So you go ahead and force your way into a topic that will allow you to ask about the Dress.