No
matter how interested you may be in a chat with a friend, you will
see her bearing down upon you, bringing in tow the one human being
you have carefully avoided for years. Escape seems impossible, but
as a forlorn hope you fling yourself into conversation with your
nearest neighbor, trying by your absorbed manner to ward off the
calamity. In vain! With a tap on your elbow your smiling hostess
introduces you and, having spoiled your afternoon, flits off in
search of other prey.
The question of introductions is one on which it is impossible to
lay down any fixed rules. There must constantly occur situations
where one's acts must depend upon a kindly consideration for other
people's feelings, which after all, is only another name for tact.
Nothing so plainly shows the breeding of a man or woman as skill in
solving problems of this kind without giving offence.
Foreigners, with their greater knowledge of the world, rarely fall
into the error of indiscriminate introducing, appreciating what a
presentation means and what obligations it entails. The English
fall into exactly the contrary error from ours, and carry it to
absurd lengths. Starting with the assumption that everybody knows
everybody, and being aware of the general dread of meeting
"detrimentals," they avoid the difficulty by making no
introductions. This may work well among themselves, but it is
trying to a stranger whom they have been good enough to ask to
their tables, to sit out the meal between two people who ignore his
presence and converse across him; for an Englishman will expire
sooner than speak to a person to whom he has not been introduced.
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