Yet they bowed to each other in formal gestures of courtship.

He pulled it open and repeated the same formal gesture with both his hands.

He once again inclined his head in that curiously formal gesture.

She glanced up, moving both hands in the formal gesture of asking.

He lay his hand over his heart in a formal gesture.

With a grave, formal gesture, the diplomat passed her the cup.

The garrison planned to stay; the guard on the bridge was nothing more than a formal gesture.

He lifted it to his lips in a formal gesture.

Steel had bowed when the other entered, a formal gesture.

How, though, are they to tell the formal gesture, the attitude, from the native impulse of the heart?