There she sat listening to the chatter and comment about her.

It was, for the most part, silly and graced by the current slang.
Several of the men in the room exchanged compliments with the girls at long range.
"Say, Kitty," called one to a girl who was doing a waltz step in a few feet of space near one of the windows, "are you going to the ball with me ?" "Look out, Kitty," called another, "you'll jar your back hair." "Go on, Rubber," was her only comment.
As Carrie listened to this and much more of similar familiar badinage among the men and girls, she instinctively withdrew into herself.

She was not used to this type, and felt that there was something hard and low about it all.

She feared that the young boys about would address such remarks to her--boys who, beside Drouet, seemed uncouth and ridiculous.

She made the average feminine distinction between clothes, putting worth, goodness, and distinction in a dress suit, and leaving all the unlovely qualities and those beneath notice in overalls and jumper.
She was glad when the short half hour was over and the wheels began to whirr again.