His efforts to contact Pabst had at least given him the feeling that he was doing something, and he felt the better for it. The fifth floor members of the Trans-Europa party gravitated to the same table. The two old ladies went across to join some even more senile friends, so the group came to consist of Elizabeth, Simon, Gilbert, the benign, if inarticulate, priest, an already intoxicated Michael Shaw, the portly Fragonard and one of the Intourist guides, a pretty dark girl whom Gilbert had produced from the hotel bureau, with his international flair for obtaining attractive companions. The dining room, looking to Simon like a Victorian airship hangar lined with potted plants and be-flagged tables, was crowded. It was filled with the buzz of conversation and the excellent music from a six-piece orchestra. As the meal was again a prolonged affair, there was plenty of time for dancing between the courses. The cultural thaw was not so pronounced in the centre of Moscow as on the Yuri Dolgorukiy and the beat and twist numbers were watered down to sedate foxtrots and waltzes, but Gilbert, the Intourist girl and Liz and Simon enjoyed themselves well enough.
