Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/101

 first thing that strikes you in a salon is the complete absence among the men of that vexatious British habit of lounging. Frenchmen in their families do not lounge as Englishmen lounge in strange drawing-rooms. I once heard a Russian woman who had sojourned in both countries say, Les Anglais n'ont pas de tenue. And this is true. An Englishman who counts himself a gentleman will put his feet on railway cushions when women are present, he will sprawl before women in rooms, keep his hands in his trousers pockets while talking to them, nurse his foot at an afternoon call—in a word, do everything but sit on the chairs or seats of civilisation in a simple and inoffensive attitude. Not one of these things have I ever seen Frenchmen do, even in intimacy. Their correctness in a drawing-room is scrupulous. Familiarity is the very last thing they suggest, though the house you meet them at may be one they have been in the habit of visiting once a week at least for many years. Englishwomen to whom I have remarked this peculiar characteristic of their countrymen retort that the behaviour of Frenchmen in dining-rooms is as inferior, compared with that of their compatriots, as ever could be the behaviour of Englishmen, tested by the same standard, in drawing-rooms. I willingly admit the accusation, and I confess I should find both races more delightful if each borrowed the