Reap What You Sow, working on rhyme & meter Options

[merle]

When my mother looked at me
her smile was wide but I could see
it didn't graze her eyes.

Much easier to bury seeds
beyond the rake of therapy
than ever question why.

When my daughter looks at me
my smile is wide but can she see
it doesn't graze my eyes.

[Sekhmet]

Hi Merle - The Brit Class System? In this case, not necessarily. Although many of our aristocrats are experts at the cold smile. 'It keeps the lower orders in their place you know.'
On their lips, it is the rapier not the broadsword.
I believe it was Oscar Wilde who said, "A Gentleman is never unintentionally rude."

A short digression about the quirks and emotional tics harboured by we Brits.
England has, since the thirteenth century, been described by her enemies as, 'Perfidious Albion.' Perfidious = faithless; treacherous; deceitful; and Albion = the oldest known name for the British Isles.
To some extent, this description is justified. Even now, we have a strong tendency to put expediency or politeness, ahead of plain speaking. We wrap up our meanings, for fear of, ' Making a scene.'
We Brits are an aggressive race, yet strangely evasive about personal things - That polite smile; the one that doesn't quite reach the eyes is a speciality, 'put down'.
It goes with phrases like; 'You must come for supper - sometime.' That, 'sometime' is the give away. If someone doesn't say, 'Come for supper, next Wednesday, at 7.00.' They mean, 'I never want to see you again!'
The smile that doesn't quite reach the eyes is used, for example, when someone - possibly, 'The Boss' tells a really offensive, sexist joke - that icy smile would be his secretary's response.
It is our way of rejecting - without saying anything out of place.
Of course the forgoing is just a generalization - there are many non devious, open and emotionally honest folk in England - but there is usually an element of obfuscation in the English psyche.
Hugs, Leo