Should he be accompanying her in the hansom, she seats herself at the nearest side to the pavement, so that when he enters he will not have to go round a corner, as it were. In this case he gives the cabman instructions across the roof of the cab, and if his companion wishes the glasses to be lowered, he asks for them through the trap-door at the top of the cab. He must never smoke when the glasses are let down--to do so would render the atmosphere unbearable to almost any woman. But if he knows his partner in the drive sufficiently well, he can ask permission to smoke, should the glasses not be required.
The etiquette in this, as in many other matters, has quite altered during the last few years. At one time it was considered a sign of infamously bad taste to smoke in the presence of women in any circumstances. But it is now no longer so.
[Sidenote: The domain of Princess Nicotine.]
So many women smoke themselves, that in some houses even the drawing-room is thrown open to Princess Nicotine.
The example of the Prince of Wales has been largely instrumental in sweeping away the old restrictions. He smokes almost incessantly. On one occasion, at the Ranelagh Club, I noticed that he consumed four cigars in rapid succession, almost without five minutes’ interval between them. The only time that he left off smoking, during the three hours that he remained in the Pavilion with the Princess and other ladies, was for ten minutes when tea was handed round.
[Sidenote: The lengths to which a smoker may now go.]
It is now no uncommon thing to see a man in evening dress smoking in a brougham with a lady on their way to opera, theatre, or dinner engagement. This is going rather far, for a woman’s evening dress implies shut windows, except in the height of summer, and her garments become as much impregnated with the odour of tobacco as if she had herself been smoking.
Some men have a knack of ridding their clothes and themselves of the fumes of smoke in a wonderful way. Perhaps one reason of this is that the tobacco they use is of a mild sort.
Perhaps the diligent use of the clothes-brush is another. But there are also men round whom cling the odours of stale tobacco with a very disagreeable constancy. Why it should be so I cannot pretend to say. It must be due to carelessness of some kind, and carelessness in such matters amounts to bad manners. Even to men who smoke--and much more to those who do not--the smell of stale tobacco is revolting. Fancy, then, how it must offend the olfactory nerves of women. Such men suggest the stableyard while they are yet several yards away!