conventional formality

The midday meal had been duly eaten—but there had been no conventional formality about it.

First of all, all useless luxury and conventional formality will be reduced to a minimum.

She did not like effusiveness, but this conventional formality seemed to her singularly out of place, until she remembered that she had once or twice already found the matter-of-fact quietness with which the man made his appearance and went away again almost disconcerting.

Dear Adolphus, why should this strained conventional formality exist any longer between us? 

Mr. Love, who was all for those innocent pastimes which do away with conventional formality and reserve, now proposed a game at "Hunt the Slipper," which was welcomed by the whole party, except the Pole and the Vicomte; though Mademoiselle Adele looked prudish, and observed to the epicier, "that Monsieur Lofe was so droll, but she should not have liked her pauvre grandmaman to see her."