Their necks moved easily in their low cravats, their long whiskers fell over their turned-down collars, they wiped their lips upon handkerchiefs with embroidered initials that gave forth a subtle perfume.

Those who were beginning to grow old had an air of youth, while there was something mature in the faces of the young.
In their unconcerned looks was the calm of passions daily satiated, and through all their gentleness of manner pierced that peculiar brutality, the result of a command of half-easy things, in which force is exercised and vanity amused--the management of thoroughbred horses and the society of loose women.
A few steps from Emma a gentleman in a blue coat was talking of Italy with a pale young woman wearing a parure of pearls.
They were praising the breadth of the columns of St.Peter's, Tivoly, Vesuvius, Castellamare, and Cassines, the roses of Genoa, the Coliseum by moonlight.

With her other ear Emma was listening to a conversation full of words she did not understand.

A circle gathered round a very young man who the week before had beaten "Miss Arabella" and "Romolus," and won two thousand louis jumping a ditch in England.

One complained that his racehorses were growing fat; another of the printers' errors that had disfigured the name of his horse.
The atmosphere of the ball was heavy; the lamps were growing dim.
Guests were flocking to the billiard room.