Thunder on the Right, the book in question, isn't my favourite but to be fair to Stewart the scene in question covers about 7 or 8 pages of masterly social commentary (comprising the two dons from a women’s college who are obsessing about geology at the next table, the heroine musing on what brings her to the Pyrenees to begin with, a quick flip back through her life from which we learn a lot about her overprotective mother and music professor father, as well as her cousin Gillian, and also introduces -- in person -- the romantic interest together with his backstory). No wonder the cheese got mixed up; there's a lot going on.