Faolan gives her a look, a good look, rather than the sideways glance he'd thrown her before, and recognizes her for the woman he'd seen flirting with Lancelot earlier. Or was it the other way around? Could the night possibly get any better than this, he wonders to himself, dryly.

"It's not exactly my kind of party, no," he explains, his voice still gruff. Sure, he might be dressed up, and he might even know how to wear a suit and act the part in there. But there's something about his manner now that he's here, outside, with no one to impress that clearly suggests he'd be much more at home in a pair of jeans, a leather jacket, and a sturdy pair of boots, not this fancy getup. (In other words, what he wears pretty much every other day of the week.)

Faolan knows that he needs to curb his mood. Get a grip. Wait until he's really alone before he finally lets out the steam that's boiling up inside of him and has been all night. And so he does what he can to swallow it down and be as pleasant as he might. Which is to say, slightly less gruff than before.

"O'Neill," he supplies her, before continuing on to instead correct with his given name. "Faolan." One of the most Irish names she'll have probably heard all night, to go with the Irish accent of the man relating it to her. "And my kind of party?" He shrugs slightly. "Not sure that I have one, I guess. Never really been the type. Certainly not the type for fancy dress like this. Parading around, pretending to care about politics and the like. Pretending to be just as self-important as them." Having to avoid the few friends he knows there and watch them enjoy themselves with beautiful women such as this one herself? "Let's just say that I didn't have much of a choice in the matter."

Ah. Faolan recognizes a bit too late that he might have gone too far in saying as much. He shrugs slightly, and then decides that, well. The best lie is one close to the truth. He's not about to say anything about the fact that he was there keeping an eye on the activities as Night Council Guardian. But he can certainly speak up about Hillingdon.

"Norrell invited the hunters," he says. "The ones he had fight for him. Not many of us are all that keen on participating in this sort of thing. They sent me to play nice for them." He shrugs again, as if to say, 'Don't ask me to explain why they chose me, I don't know either.'

Faolan shrugs slightly. "I'm sorry if I'm disappointing you," he says, dryly. "It's politics. If you wait long enough, I'm sure you'll find your scandal eventually. Hang around Norrell long enough and one will come creeping along no doubt." Ah, and he's letting his personal thoughts and opinions color his comments to a stranger while he's supposed to be laying low. He really ought to just be leaving. Something about the fact that this is the first honest conversation he's had all night keeps him right where he is, though.