In French fiction there is invariably a murmur of applause when the heroine enters a room full of people, which fact serves, at all events, to show the breeding and social status of persons with whom French novelists are in the habit of associating.

There was therefore no applause when Paul and Etta made their appearance, but that lady had, nevertheless, the satisfaction of perceiving glances, not only of admiration, but of interest and even of disapproval, among her own sex.

Her dress she knew to be perfect, and when she perceived the craning pale face of the inevitable lady-journalist, peering between the balusters of a gallery, she thoughtfully took up a prominent position immediately beneath that gallery, and slowly turned round like a beautifully garnished joint before the fire of cheap publicity.
To Paul this ball was much like others.

There were a number of the friends of his youth--tall, clean-featured, clean-limbed men, with a tendency toward length and spareness--who greeted him almost affectionately.

Some of them introduced him to their wives and sisters, which ladies duly set him down as nice but dull--a form of faint praise which failed to damn.