Ford nodded at the condolences, but otherwise let them pass unremarked on. He was familiar enough with the sentiment now to know when someone was being genuine and when someone was only saying that to be polite, and thought this was most decidedly the latter, which meant it didn't bear commenting on. Not that he was at all disappointed that a practical stranger he'd just met at the club didn't want to sit around unpacking grief with him. This was why society had established the whole concept of being polite; so that you didn't have to talk about uncomfortable things.

"I think I may have seen Yarrow Macnair at the Ministry," Ford said with a light shrug, as though he couldn't be sure. Yarrow Macnair was Noble's age, and though Ford didn't know him well he'd gotten the vague impression that he was sort of a prat. Probably best not to mention that to his brother, just in case they were close, or in case Valerian Macnair was the sort who would feel obliged to defend a sibling even if they weren't. "And where do you work? Or do you?" This last had occurred to him only after he'd started talking; Macnair was the eldest son of a family who had actual money, and significantly more of it than the Greengrasses were even supposed to have had before their father had lost it all in bad investments, so Macnair probably didn't have to work if he didn't want to. That was an utterly bizarre concept for Ford — that people might just do nothing. Well, it was bizarre when thinking about men, anyway. Women mostly did nothing, and they seemed to enjoy it just fine.