Another Study of Woman

Excerpt

At Paris there are almost always two separate parties going on at every ball and rout.  First, an official party, composed of the persons invited, a fashionable and much-bored circle.  Each one grimaces for his neighbor’s eye; most of the younger women are there for one person only; when each woman has assured herself that for that one she is the handsomest woman in the room, and that the opinion is perhaps shared by a few others, a few insignificant phrases are exchanged, as:  “Do you think of going away soon to La Crampade?” “How well Madame de Portenduere sang!” “Who is that little woman with such a load of diamonds?” Or, after firing off some smart epigrams, which give transient pleasure, and leave wounds that rankle long, the groups thin out, the mere lookers on go away, and the waxlights burn down to the sconces.