people block the
distance between so that an introduction would be forced and awkward.

A newly arriving visitor in a lady's drawing-room is not introduced to
another who is taking leave. Nor is an animated conversation between two
persons interrupted to introduce a third. Nor is any one ever led around a
room and introduced right and left.

If two ladies or young girls are walking together and they meet a third
who stops to speak to one of them, the other walks slowly on and does not
stand awkwardly by and wait for an introduction. If the third is asked by
the one she knows, to join them, the sauntering friend is overtaken and an
introduction always made. The third, however, must not join them unless
invited to do so.

At a very large dinner, people (excepting the gentlemen and ladies who are
to sit next to each other at table) are not collectively introduced. After
dinner, men in the smoking room or left at table always talk to their
neighbors whether they have been introduced or not, and ladies in the
drawing-room do the same. But unless they meet soon again, or have found
each other so agreeable that they make an effort to continue the
acquaintance, they become strangers again, equally whether they were
introduced or not.

Some writers on etiquette speak of "correct introductions" that carry
"obligations of future acquaintance," and "incorrect introductions," that
seemingly obligate one to nothing.

Degrees of introduction are utterly unknown to best society. It makes not
the slightest difference so far as any one's acceptance or rejection of
another is concerned how an introduction is worded or, on occasions,
whether an introduction takes place at all.

Fashionable people in very large cities take introductions lightly; they
are veritable ships that pass in the night. They show their red or green
signals--which are merely polite sentences and pleasant manners--and they
pass on again.

When you are introduced to some one for the second time and the first
occasion was without interest and long ago, there is no reason why you
should speak of the former meeting.

If some one presents you to Mrs. Smith for the second time on the same
occasion, you smile and say "I have already met Mrs. Smith," but you say
nothing if you met Mrs. Smith long ago and she showed no interest in you
at that time.

Most rules are elastic and contract and expand according to circumstances.
You do not remind Mrs. Smith of having met