She might have been grateful, but the reflection that she had made a step to unlock the antechamber of her dearest deepest matters to an ordinary military officer, whose notions of women were probably those of his professional brethren, impelled her to transfer his polished decorousness to the burden of his masculine antagonism-plainly visible.
"The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of George Meredith"
George Meredith
For he lacked the capacity for making friends, and repelled rather than attracted by a studiously impressive demeanor, a painful decorousness, and an unbending dignity, which was, of course, no true dignity at all, but merely a bad imitation of it.
"American Men of Action"
Burton E. Stevenson
That decorousness, that brightness, melted off what lay behind, as frosty dew melts off grass.
"The Dark Flower"
John Galsworthy