In passing ladies on the promenade, in the street or Park, if a man chance to be smoking, he always takes his cigar from his mouth, replacing it when the lady or ladies have passed on. In the crowded streets of great cities this, if carried out in full entirety, would be too much. Therefore it is observed only with reference to such ladies as pass the smoker quite closely. “I know he is a gentleman,” said a girl once of a good-looking young fellow whose appearance had pleased her—“I know he is a gentleman, for he stopped smoking directly he saw us.” It is in the observance of little things of this kind that one shows clearly one’s breeding or lack of it.
When a young man is walking with a lady, and happens to meet another lady with whom he is on more intimate terms than with his companion, he must ask pardon of the latter if he should stop to speak.
Meeting a more intimate acquaintance when with a lady.
“Excuse me for one moment,” he would say, and his companion, if a gentlewoman, would walk some yards on, and then slowly stroll along until he joined her again. The strict rule is that when walking with a lady a man should never leave her side.
The rule for introductions in such a case.
Suppose a young man were to meet his mother or sister while he was in the company of a lady unknown to them, he must not introduce her to them or them to her without having previously obtained special permission on both sides. There are young men who make acquaintance with girls in a lower walk of life than their own. It would be an insult to mother or sister to introduce a milliner’s apprentice or an assistant in a shop, or, in fact, any one whom he had picked up without a regular introduction.
Acquaintance without introduction.
No respectable young woman would walk with or talk with any man to whom she had not had a proper introduction. The inference is that those who do so are not respectable, and must not, therefore, be introduced to those who are.
Stopping to speak to a lady.
The old rule was that when a gentleman stopped to speak to a lady in the street he walked a little way with her in the direction in which she had been going.