Few women except Suellen had ever given him more than perfunctory courtesy and it was very flattering to have a former belle like Scarlett hanging on his words.
He said something about the gift being the best thing he'd received all year. I shrugged my shoulders to make light of perfunctory gratitude. Perhaps I just wanted him to repeat it.
It's just a piece of perfunctory politeness, a chance to give me a sentence or two before we get down to the real business of the evening, which is talking about you.
Well, it won't be easy at first, there'll be a lot of forced smiles and perfunctory lovemaking, but after a few decades whiz by, I'm sure I'll find a way to forgive him.
And we're opening them up. And if I have to, I will override any governor that wants to play games. If they want to play games, that's OK. But we will win.
She had never given him more than perfunctory courtesy before, and so the beaming smile of pleasure with which she greeted him and the two hands outstretched to his almost took his breath away.