Two companions, one evening, and a table that runs better for it

Who goes with whom

Delphine pairs them herself, and she pairs for temperament rather than for appearance. Two women who have never met can be perfectly pleasant company and are rarely the best evening available. The pairs she offers are ones that have worked before: women who live a few streets apart, who arrive together, and who are already mid conversation when the door opens.

How an evening for three runs

The two arrive together, which matters more than it sounds, since neither is left alone in a bar waiting for the other. The first half hour is a drink and an introduction, and one of them usually carries it while the other takes the measure of the room. At the table the conversation settles into three corners rather than two, and by the second course it tends to run without anybody steering it. After dinner the pair will propose a walk, and at the hour agreed the two of them leave together, exactly as they came.

Pairs that work

Lea and Patricia both keep to Belgravia and know the same doors on the same terraces. Angelika and Samanta are the quiet pair, both composed, both slow to fill a silence and entirely unbothered by one. Molly and Rosa are the opposite arrangement and a table with those two at it never once goes flat. Bianka and Margo run a Knightsbridge dinner between them with no help from anybody. The quiet pair both live inside Mayfair and can be at the same table within minutes of one another, and Molly on Dover Street is five minutes on foot from Rosa's end of Bond Street, which is why the livelier pairing is so easily arranged. Every face is in the Salon.

Where to put three people

A round table if the restaurant has one, because a banquette built for three leaves somebody on the outside of the conversation all evening. Dinner is the natural setting and the four hour length is what Delphine suggests most often for this. A private dining room works beautifully when there are more of you than three.

How the figure is set out

Each woman is booked at the ordinary tariff for her own hours, and the two figures are written separately in the thread before you agree to anything. Two hours with a pair is two lots of £500, and the four hour dinner is two lots of £900. Nothing is added for the pairing and nothing is taken off it. Each is handed her own fee as she arrives, and the evening can be extended on the night on the same terms as any single booking.

The plain terms, which matter more here

Both women are booked for their time and their company, exactly as either would be alone, and nothing beyond that is offered, implied or arranged in either case. Nothing whatever is expected of them with one another.

If that is what you are looking for, this is not the house for it, and Delphine will tell you so directly rather than accept a booking she cannot honour.

Notice

Lining up two diaries takes rather longer than lining up one, so offer Delphine two or three possible evenings instead of a single date. A day or two in hand usually secures the pair you actually want instead of the pair who happen to be free.

If one of the two cannot come

Two diaries are twice as likely to change as one. If either woman is held up or unwell, Delphine tells you at once and offers a replacement she knows works well with the other, or the remaining one alone if you would rather. You are never held to a pair that is no longer the pair you asked for, and nothing is owed for the woman who did not arrive.