Being most kindly disposed toward her, she tried to teach her, to instruct her in the ways of society, as one might instruct an attractive provincial, who fell but little short of being altogether charming.
Advice is not readily accepted by one pretty young woman from another.
When Madame Fromont gave a grand dinner-party, she took Madame Risler to her bedroom, and said to her, smiling frankly in order not to vex her: "You have put on too many jewels, my dear.

And then, you know, with a high dress one doesn't wear flowers in the hair." Sidonie blushed, and thanked her friend, but wrote down an additional grievance against her in the bottom of her heart.
In Claire's circle her welcome was decidedly cold.

The Faubourg Saint-Germain has its pretensions; but do not imagine that the Marais has none! Those wives and daughters of mechanics, of wealthy manufacturers, knew little Chebe's story; indeed, they would have guessed it simply by her manner of making her appearance and by her demeanor among them.
Sidonie's efforts were unavailing.

She retained the manners of a shop-girl.

Her slightly artificial amiability, sometimes too humble, was as unpleasant as the spurious elegance of the shop; and her disdainful attitudes recalled the superb airs of the head saleswomen in the great dry-goods establishments, arrayed in black silk gowns, which they take off in the dressing-room when they go away at night--who stare with an imposing air, from the vantage-point of their mountains of curls, at the poor creatures who venture to discuss prices.
She felt that she was being examined and criticised, and her modesty was compelled to place itself upon a war footing.