Rough frontier living coexists with refined manners and concealed hatred.

Evidence

Page 239 courteously pressed him to stay and dine with us, and not only did he show the most singular conversational dexterity in talking with the stranger, who was a very well-informed man, and had seen a great deal of the world, but, though he lives and eats like a savage, his manners and way of eating were as refined as possible. I notice that Evans is never quite himself or perfectly comfortable when he is there; and on the part of the other there is a sort of stiffly-assumed cordiality, significant, I fear of lurking hatred on both sides. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 260

Categorization

• XREF: Recalls the World of Strangers material on reading strangers’ demeanor in public — here the cues mislead rather than inform. — connects to: Frontier religious worship was conducted with grim dolefulness. — Isabella L. Bird, A Lady’s Life in the Rocky Mountains, 67
• STORYSTEM: A dinner-table scene where two men trade perfect courtesies while the narrator smells hatred beneath; tension through manners rather than violence.