Terrence is confused but interested. "Ah! I took you for a Jungian. Fascinating, people - well, they are wont to do that, it's the peril of my own studies as well. Bringing all of one's own agenda to history and so forth. I can only imagine it's all the worse with the alive and well. ...Or perhaps easier, since they can at least answer your questions."

"Well, I work with the severely insane, so often they can't."

"Oh - my friend, Miss Jing. Miss Jing, this is my new acquaintance, who is dressed as a man in a suit." Terrence says this last part playfully.

Miss Jing waves politely and makes no comment along the lines of 'Nice costume.'

To Leo: "Goodness me. Such as that Alexander Roby case? I hear he's getting out soon."

"Well, it was never certain that he did it. The murder was quite... physically impossible."

"Sorry to cut in, but you know I've never thought Roby did it. Of course I didn't know him firsthand, but I don't really think we can judge character by what the state says. We're all degenerates as far as they're concerned."

Jing Yi is saying nothing.

"Oscar! Good to see you. True and too unfortunate. ... I must, uh, say, hm, physically impossible does make it seem unlikely that it was, uh, one man's doing, whatever judges or whomever else may think of his character."

"Good to see you, um...? Thomas, was it?"

"Terrence! You have the consonants mostly right, and all in order." Terrence glances around. He drops his voice, but he's kind of fondly amused at the possibility. "My friend," he asks Leo, "Are you here as a field study?"

"No!"

"I was just messing with you, Terrence."

To Oscar: "I was about to be quite offended, I'll have you know." This is a jape. Like, 70% a jape. To Leo, Terrence chuckles. "My apologies. I thought I hadn't seen you before, and the possibility would be funny, you have to admit."

"I don't... get... out much," he says uncomfortably.

"If you did want to learn about bohemians and those with unusual preferences, there are worse places." He keeps his voice high, both to pass and because Oscar.

Oscar is pretty sure Terrence has no unusual preferences beyond unusually bad taste in dramas.

A week after the ball--

The curtain time is quite late and the stars hidden as the investigators make their way to the theater and join others gathering outside. The audience draws from all social classes, all dressed in their best. The doors soon open. As the audience enters they are handed another playbill along with a cast list. The interior of the theater is gloomy with illumination coming from gas lamps evenly set around the red-painted walls and from the foot lamps below the stage’s edge. The theater is small but still less than half full — there are about a hundred people present.

Sano is escorting Simone to another event. Hopefully one with fewer People this time.

One Can Certainly Hope.

It's important as an artist to keep up with what others are doing in your craft. It's also just polite to go see what your fellow actors are up to, and practice not being jealous that the hack Walter somehow ended up getting cast instead of you.

Terrence is really sympathetic that Jing Yi didn't get the part. Absolute shame, sign of truly flawed taste on the casting agent's part. And he's serious, even if he's jazzed as hell for every single other aspect of the performance. He wants to meet Talbot Estus. He's also scoping out the audience, for whatever time he has before paying riveted attention to the play, for other audience members who seem like they might have read the text. He is speculating to whomever will listen about the few production decisions he knows about.

So this is the play that Terrence's been so enthusiastic about. Oscar's attitude is best described as morbid curiosity. If it's anything like reading the first act, the acting's going to be wooden. Can he get away with leaving halfway through? Theater-going etiquette: a bourgeois convention, probably.