In the fashionable New York restaurant where Rupert Barlow has given a dinner party before the performance of the show in which Claudia Vincent is to star for the first time opposite Larry Noble, Mary is in the powder room with her good friend Maud Marlow, and has just called the theater to give her husband a word of cheer - only to learn the most distressing news from the play's producer that Larry isn't there - and has gone out to look for Claudia!