"Absently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... officer curtly, moving on and absently pulling out his watch as if to verify his estimate of time. ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Vol. II: In the Midst of Life: Tales of Soldiers and Civilians • Ambrose Bierce
... head, and, donning the togas which slaves had brought, they hurried into the street, hardly noting that Sergius had reseated himself and was gazing absently down into the water, counting the ripples that spread from where each threadlike stream fell from ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... high clouds hang motionless in the far-distant blue—a day at the very heels of which it would seem that summer was lurking. Maurice Guest stood at his window, both sides of which were flung open, drinking in the warm air, and gazing absently up at the stretch of sky, against which the dark roof-lines of the houses opposite stood out abruptly. His hands were in his pockets, and, to a light beat of the foot, he hummed softly to himself, but what, he could not have told: whether some fragment of melody that had lingered ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... thought she. "It is just the sort of matter-of-fact thing he would do." Revolving it over, she walked slowly towards her step-mother, who was revelling in a packet of English letters just received, and began reading out portions to Cecil, who listened absently at first, till a passage in one of them, from ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... 'get gone,'" said Bobby absently. "I don't know how it got loose, but it has. You can see for yourself. And all our toys ...
— Four Little Blossoms at Brookside Farm • Mabel C. Hawley
... silent in her place, puzzled, wistful, wounded, her idle hands folded, looking at him for a while, then absently before her, and he knew that her mind was busy again with the preacher feller's books. If he had known better how to explain his heart, if she had known how to show him the impersonal eagerness of her awakening mind—! But, ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... century, is curious to see the sort of man a cook of London may be, and the sort of woman a Wife of Bath is. How many wretches perish in Froissart! What blood; what hecatombs; and how few tears! Scarcely here and there, and far apart, words absently spoken about so much suffering: "And died the common people of hunger, which was great pity."[530] Why lament long, or marvel at it? It is the business and proper function of the common people to be cut to pieces; they ...
— A Literary History of the English People - From the Origins to the Renaissance • Jean Jules Jusserand
... meeting at two. Really," Olive spoke a little absently, herself; "I almost wish that ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... fanning himself absently with his white straw hat, pausing from time to time to exchange a word of greeting—secure in the affability of one who is not only a judge of man but a Bassett of Virginia. From his classic head to his ill-fitting boots he upheld the traditions ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... her, ain't you?" asked Lydia absently. She was wondering if aunt Phebe would speak ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... long silence between the two men. Thayer, sitting at his desk, was absently measuring his blotting pad with a letter, so many envelopes' length this way, so many that. The letter was from the impresario, reminding him that his decision was due, that night, and urging him to accept the offer. At length, ...
— The Dominant Strain • Anna Chapin Ray
... silence. Willy Cameron sat on the bench, bent and staring ahead. Jinx brought the stick, and, receiving no attention, insinuated a dripping body between his knees. He patted the dog's head absently. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... know—I shouldn't think so," answered Rosemary absently. "Sarah, Nina Edmonds wears her hair ...
— Rosemary • Josephine Lawrence
... and caressed his bruised knuckles absently. "Well, then, I guess this is the finish," he ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... confusedly, that there were many thing? she should have said and at the same time there was a strange surety that sometime she would see him again and say them. She walked absently to the window which opened on the vacant lot to the rear ...
— Alcatraz • Max Brand
... higher than usual; I noticed that," Thurston agreed absently. He was thinking more of Mona just then than of the river. He wondered if she would be at home. He could easily ride down there and find out. It wasn't far; not a quarter of a mile, but he assured himself that he wasn't going, and that he was not quite a fool, he hoped Even if she were at home, ...
— The Lure of the Dim Trails • by (AKA B. M. Sinclair) B. M. Bower
... said slowly, with something very like a sigh. "He was the only man I ever knew who made me do what I did not want to do and made me wish to be something better than I was," she added absently. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... laughing, that Miss Field had taken pity on what would otherwise have been solitary confinement, and that now it was time to dress. Meadows kissed her absently, and, with his head evidently still full of his walk, went to his dressing-room. When he reappeared, it was to find Doris attired in a little black gown, with which he was already too familiar. She saw at once the ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... I'm sure," said Hilliard absently. It was easy to see that he had no attention to spare for Mademoiselle or her confectionery, and presently he added in a lower tone, "There is no immediate hurry for my return. I can just as well stay another three or four days, but I must be back in town before this day week. ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... his feet, and, as usual, his action brought the discussion to an end. The woman returned to her work; the men put on hats and coats preparatory to going out of doors. Only the proprietor stood passive a moment absently drawing down his ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... was inhabited, and could you have pushed aside the creaking door, you might have seen an old woman, wrinkled and gray, sitting by the silent hearth, stirring the dull fire, or looking absently from the window. ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... P. Sybarite in a manner of abstraction that did him no injustice; and entering the car, mechanically shut the door and sat down, permitting his gaze to range absently among the dusky distances of Central Park; where through the netted, leafless branches, the lamps that march the winding pathways glimmered like a hundred tiny moons of gold lost in ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... before the Colonel's mind as he stood there gazing absently in front of him! Recollections of mean and envious criticisms, ugly underhand slanders, petty intrigue, his own shame-faced patronage! And then the vision of a lovely, white-faced woman making her desperate self-accusal, and of a terrible, vulgar mother ...
— The Native Born - or, The Rajah's People • I. A. R. Wylie
... it all is!" said Mrs. Yocomb, with a sigh, and looking absently out of the window to where the sun glowed not far above the horizon. Its level rays lighted up her face, making it so beautiful and noble that I felt assured that I had come to the right one for light and guidance. "Every heart seems to have its burden when the whole truth is known," ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe
... mind drove her at last almost insensibly towards the low, wide wall facing the unquiet sea. Here she sat down, still absorbed in her thoughts, her gaze resting absently on the incoming tide below. She was conscious of a strange feeling of communion ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... and half boiled as usual! My, but it'll be nice to go to your funeral," shrieked Mary. She went out of the kitchen, giving the door such a bang that even Aunt Martha heard it, and Mr. Meredith in his study felt the vibration and thought absently that there must have been a slight earthquake shock. Then he went ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... to Florrie the young mistress with her stern dark mask and formidable eyebrows and air of superb disdain was as august as a goddess. Florrie, moving backwards, had now got nearly to the scullery door with her wringing and splashing and wiping; and she had dirtied even her face. As Hilda absently looked at her, she thought somehow of Mr. Cannon's white wristbands. She saw the washing and the ironing of those wristbands, and a slatternly woman or two sighing and grumbling amid wreaths of steam, and a background of cinders and suds and sloppiness.... All that, so that ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... in his chair as though wearied. Yet either the rest or the wine seemed already to have done him good. The lines about his mouth gradually softened. He talked very little and rather absently. In no way could he be said to contribute to the gaiety of the little party. But when they were on their way out ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... answer, absently, his eyes fixed keenly upon the belt and taking note of its girth. "But where is the knife?" ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... her daughter said nothing of the events of the morning, and soon went out again; Rosine and her father sat dreamily, he by the window, smoking, and she with an unread magazine before her. She looked absently about the room, with happy eyes, trying to recall the details of the scene between her and Daniel; her glance fell on her father's weary face, and its melancholy expression struck her sharply. She got up, and standing ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... the direction of her sleepy eyes, and saw that both Miss Lee and Hilda appeared to be put out. The former was talking absently to Mr. Bellamy, and glancing continually in the direction of that gentleman's wife. The latter, too, whilst appearing to listen to some compliment from George, was gazing at Mrs. Bellamy with a curious look of dislike and apprehension in ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... he replied absently. "And Alves wouldn't want any one. She would have done everything for me. I will ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... hair flying in the March breeze, above a face selfless as that of some young prophet. Her eager, undisciplined nature found here what it craved. Coquetry had not availed her; it had fallen off him unrecognised—this man who answered it absently, and thought his own thoughts. And with the divine pertinacity of life itself she delved in the ancient wisdom of her sex for a lure to make him rise and follow her. It was not bright eyes nor red lips that could move or please ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... silent, staring absently at the door that had just closed on the general's burly figure. He still held Elizabeth's letter in his hand. In fancy he was seeing her as she had bent above it, her face tender, compassionate; and then there rose the vision of that crowded room with its palpable atmosphere, its score ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester
... He heard absently indistinct voices at the open hall window above the porch, where Aunt Isabel was talking to Kathleen Bell. Presently Aunt Isabel moved nearer to the window, and her words came down to Robert with ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... up a letter from the table in front of her and with it tapped her lips absently—"perhaps he prefers to live that way. I wonder, Miss French, if you can tell me where Kroonstater's is? No one here seems to know, and every day I get further commissions from my county which can only be filled there. Years ago some one from Brooke Bank bought wonderful and marvelous ...
— The Man in Lonely Land • Kate Langley Bosher
... he might turn to me, after putting on his hat, and absently pull one of my ears, or stroke my nose or forehead. His hands were very slender, warm, and pleasantly odorous of soap and tobacco. 'Be a good man,' he would say. And there the interview ended. He never said: 'Be a good child'; always 'a good man'; ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... Bryce absently watched the process in a large tilted mirror slung overhead. Medicine bored him. "J. H. Beldman, member of the Board of Directors," he explained, and for the benefit of the policeman standing beside the door he added, "Bad tempered as they come." He looked into the mirror uneasily, trying ...
— The Man Who Staked the Stars • Charles Dye
... "Where?" she echoed absently, watching to see that nothing was spilled from the spoon as she continued to move toward him. "Why, I was talking to old Mrs. Wottaw at market this morning, and she said her son Clark used to have nervous trouble, and she told me about this medicine and how to have it ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... perplexing mystery life is after all!" she replied, absently. "I really think poor old Daddy Tuggar speaks truly. He is a 'well- meaning' man, but he and many others remind me of one not having the slightest ear for music trying to ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... The elder woman had given her costume an appreciative, and herself a supercilious glance, which had been met with one which did not seem to recognise her visibility. Margaret was not easily put down by another woman. She stared absently at the ornate and weary decorations of the room. It was handsome, but tiresome, as everybody who entered realised, and as, no doubt, the decorator had found out. It was a ready-made species of room, with no heart ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... he put the recommendation of the son and master on the same line as that of the coal. Mr Headley answered the business matters absently, and ended by saying he ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge
... together, which was a symptom it were well for the other to recognize but did not. Then Andy smiled, which was another symptom. He fingered the spur absently, laid it down and reached, with the gesture that betrays the act as having become second nature, for his papers and ...
— The Happy Family • Bertha Muzzy Bower
... From absently picking and choosing among the forks, and trying to drink his bouillon out of the cup in which it was served, to upsetting his glass of iced tea, he stumbled on in a dream of awkwardness; and when, to cover the tea mishap, Ardea, emulating the lady hostess who broke one of her priceless tea-cups ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... Cecil said nothing, but absently doled out the last cabbage leaf to the rabbits in such small morsels, that they nibbled at his fingers as if they thought those part of the provender. Jessie was lost in a calculation of whether if Frances and she were to have no new frocks for a twelvemonth, and to save up ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... that he wanted to speak to the rector. The double suffering of certain and uncertain sorrow had begun to shake the strong man. The butler looked at him wonderingly, as he threw himself on a bench in the passage and stared absently at the clock on the opposite wall. The master had somebody with him, he said, but he heard the study door open—the stranger seemed to be coming out, and as Adam was in a hurry, he would let ...
— Adam Bede • George Eliot
... too bad," said he, drawing the remnant of the shroud about him and leaning his jaw pensively on his hand. Then he put his left foot up on his knee and fell to scratching his anklebone absently with a rusty nail which he got out of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... slowly up the terrace, turning absently toward the direction whence came the voice. Zanetto with a lute on his shoulder, and dragging his cloak up the steep, enters with a happy ...
— Zanetto and Cavalleria Rusticana • Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, and Pietro Mascagni
... about, studying the many curios. Occasionally Grumbach wiped his forehead, and, absently, the inner rim of his hat. Perhaps the three of them waited twenty minutes; then the chancellor came in. He bowed cordially and drew chairs about his desk. He placed Grumbach in the full glare of the lamp. Carmichael and the sub-chief were in the half-light. The chancellor ...
— The Goose Girl • Harold MacGrath
... rather late, I will not see your wife to-night, but will treat her absently as soon as I get home. I would also suggest that you acquaint her with the fact that I will see her ...
— The Pastor's Son • William W. Walter
... there." Fairchild grasped the pudgy hand and left the office. For a moment afterward, old Henry Beamish stood thinking and looking out over the dingy roof adjacent. Then, somewhat absently, he pressed the ancient electric button for his ...
— The Cross-Cut • Courtney Ryley Cooper
... up a trembling hand and took from that shelf a piece of twisted paper, which he opened absently only to find it inscribed with a true lover's knot and, ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... your husband," said the abbot, at last, drumming on the table nervously and absently with the tips of his white fingers. "They who do their own will only are quick to condemn those who hope to accomplish the ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... absently. Then, to the spare man at the head of the table: "I have been next door, talking to the American Secretary of War. A dull fellow. Convinced, is he, that Arvania harbors only kind thoughts for this great stupid ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... delightfully restful. I love the cool green lights and the cool grey shadows of the woodlands in early summer," she remarked absently. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... to his desk, clicked the transmitter and receiver switches on and off, moved a rheostat or two. He reached up to a wall toggle, turned a small air-circulating fan on and off. "Everything else seems to work," he said absently. ...
— Breaking Point • James E. Gunn
... while Romayne was speaking. He went through the ceremonies of introduction to the master of Vange Abbey with perfect politeness, but a little absently. His mind was bent on putting his suspicion of Stella to the test of confirmation. Not waiting to be presented, he turned to her with the air of fatherly interest and chastened admiration which he well knew how to assume in his intercourse ...
— The Black Robe • Wilkie Collins
... eye, ranging the Night, From its big circling ever absently Returns, thou large, low star, to fix on thee. Maria! Star? No star; a Light, a Light! Wouldst leap ashore, Heart? Yonder burns a Light! 'Pedro Gutierrez, wake! come up to me. I prithee stand and gaze about the sea; What seest?' 'Admiral, ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... the village, and make a mental note, almost absently, that people were getting to their feet now, some of them clinging together the way you and Martha were—and then back down into mental chaos ...
— Eight Keys to Eden • Mark Irvin Clifton
... authors whom time had elevated to a place among literary "old families." Also he examined some old Chinese ivory carvings with a critical, valuating, meditative eye. Also in passing—and this he did absently, as one might do from habit—he tried the knob of a big safe, but it ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... mornings or afternoons, taking trunks out or putting them in. With the trunks set into the corridors and opened for them, they would spend the hours looking the contents over, talking to their neighbors, or rapt in long silences when they hesitated with things held off or up, and, after gazing absently at them, putting them back again. Sometimes they varied the process by laying things aside for sending home, and receipting for them at ...
— The Daughter of the Storage - And Other Things in Prose and Verse • William Dean Howells
... Lingard, who felt a chill down his back at the idea of his own vessel decaying slowly in some Dutch port. "He died—didn't he?" he asked, absently, while he wondered whether he would have the pluck to set fire to ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... going to christen Roger," I thought disgustedly and returned to my troublesome thoughts, replying absently that it would be all ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell
... she said absently. Caruso was the name Dick had given the bird. And to David: "She must be in ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Oscard absently. In his ears there rang already the steady plash of the paddle, the weird melancholy song of the boatmen, the music of the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... to him and me. I take it you want me to see him?" Fred sat down again and began absently to trace the carpet pattern with his cane. "At the worst," he spoke wanderingly, "I thought you'd perhaps let me go in on the business end of it and invest along with you. You'd put in your talent and ambition and hard work, and I'd put in the money and—well, ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... believe not," Simon answered absently. "A lone trapper on Box Elder Creek gave him the information; said it was the biggest herd seen on these hunting ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... "Work!" exclaimed the baron, absently, passing his fingers through his tangled hair; "oh! yes, work! the harder the better; ...
— In the Yule-Log Glow, Book II - Christmas Tales from 'Round the World • Various
... in the summer silence. She remembered thinking vaguely, and no doubt foolishly, that the cameo would drop more heavily and more certainly without the case, which was wood, though covered with leather, and she had therefore taken the brooch out, and had probably put back the case absently into her pocket. And thence it had found its way back among her things, ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his boot and sock, empties half a pint of sand out of them, and pulls up his trouser-leg. His leg is sheathed to the knee in dust and sweat; he absently scrapes it with his knife, and presently he amuses himself by moistening a strip with his forefinger and shaving it, as if he were vaguely curious to see if he ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... of asking me if she should mend it. I took her hand to kiss it, but she did not give me time, presenting her lips, burning with desire. I took her hand again, and it was just on the spot when the cousin came in. Manon held the piece of lace, and seemed to be waiting for my answer. I told her absently that I should be obliged if she would mend it when she had time, and with this she ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Roger absently flipped the scanner to its farthest range. He had been observing the planet Tara for several hours and knew its shape fairly well. But he suddenly jerked to attention. His hands trembled slightly as he peered intently at the scope. Finally he slumped back. There was no doubt about it. ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... went into the front parlor, took from a damask sofa a rare shawl of white lace and, walking to a mirror, threw it over her head, absently noting the effect in profile. She lifted this off and, breaking the rose from part of its stem, pinned that on her breast. Then, stepping aside to one of the large lofty windows, she stood there under the droop of the curtains, sunk into reverie again and looking out upon the yard and the ...
— The Mettle of the Pasture • James Lane Allen
... and a long silence followed. Once or twice he roused himself, stirred the cup of chocolate which the waiter had set before him, and sipped a teaspoonful of it absently. The corner where the two men sat together was quiet, but from the front of the cafe came the continual clatter of plates and glasses, the echo of feet, and the ring of voices; for it was just midday, and the place was ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... were silent for a moment, the lawyer looking absently at the foot-board of the bed, nodding his head slowly from time to time, repeating, "Yes, sir—yes, sir." Suddenly he exclaimed, "Well—now, let's see." He cleared his throat, coming back to himself again, and continued in a very businesslike ...
— Vandover and the Brute • Frank Norris
... too much, and I beat a retreat—feigning boredom, or cessation of interest, of course; and absently carrying the still throbbing heart in ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... think so?" Martin queried absently, for to him there was only one beautiful woman in the world, and she was beside him, ...
— Martin Eden • Jack London
... a little absently, for, because since she had been Queen—and before—she had been a lonely woman, she was given to thinking her own thoughts whilst ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... was absently tapping a pile of compositions on the table beside her, and did not see the frown. She would not have suspected the cause if ...
— The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories • Gertrude Atherton
... not do," he answered, absently, staring at the straining canvas and listening to the roar of the storm. "A man would die in the open on a ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... bed early, saying "good-night everybody" rather absently. She climbed up the stairs wearily. When her mother slipped away from the others, having started the victrola and urged them to dancing, she found Gloria ready for bed but standing before her window, looking out at the first stars. Mrs. Gaynor discovered in ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... "Na," said Gavin, absently, "she'll no' hae nocht to dae wi' onybody in the way o' love—hae anither, Andra. Dinna droon the miller. Wad we no' hae been fules to tak champagne? It wad hae been ...
— St. Cuthbert's • Robert E. Knowles
... the little Chelwoods was ever a quarter as pretty as that gypsy child, even when they were babies," continued his wife gazing absently at the rose, "and now they're getting ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... companion, absently. He quite agreed with Galmiche—the Americans were traitors, oh, of the blackest black! But the sky overhead was so blue, the wind blowing in from the Gulf and lifting the dark curls on his bared forehead was so moist and sweet, the ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... home and the rest of us went to bed,—all except Mrs. O'Shaughnessy, who was so cranky and snappy that we left her by the fire. It seemed hours after when I awoke. She was still sitting by the fire; she was absently marking in the ashes with a stick. I happened to be the first one up next morning and as I stirred up the fire I saw "Baby" written in the ashes. We had breakfasted and the men had gone their ways when Mrs. O'Shaughnessy ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... totally different thing." He laid little Aggie down and moved away as without a purpose; but his friend presently perceived his purpose to be another glance at the other young lady. As if all accidentally and absently he bent again over the portrait of Nanda. "Lady Julia was exquisite and this child's ...
— The Awkward Age • Henry James
... Colonel Leonidas Talbot had spoken the weighty truth. Stonewall Jackson was a thinker, and thinkers are never numerous in the world. He resolved to think more for himself if he could, and he sat there trying to think, while he absently regarded ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... have had the same feeling sometimes, Mr. Baxter. I am not always the staid respectable matron which I appear to you to be. Sometimes I—(She looks absently at the watch on her ...
— Belinda • A. A. Milne
... English royalty drops in sociably to distribute medals and sip a cup of tea to have German shells invite themselves to the party. It is a way German shells have. They push in everywhere. One invited itself to my party and got within ten feet of it. When I complained, the colonel suggested absently that it probably was not a German shell but a French mine that had gone off prematurely. He seemed to think being hit by a French mine rather than by a German shell made all the difference in the world. ...
— With the French in France and Salonika • Richard Harding Davis
... that lay on my desk—a pencil, perhaps, or a bit of paper—and toyed with it, absently, as though I had not spoken. I thought he had not heard, and I was conscious of feeling a bit embarrassed, and very young. Suddenly he raised his smoldering eyes to mine, and I saw that they had taken on a deeper glow. His white, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... bent low, while the king nodded absently. He was thinking that a penful of ink, carelessly trailed over a sheet of paper, had lost him his throne. He was about to draw the arm of the diplomat through his own, when his step was arrested by the entrance of a messenger who presented a letter ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... absorbed in some scientific subject when the nurse announced the arrival of a boy. "What—who?" stammered the professor absently. "Why interrupt me—isn't my wife ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... John rode home in the stage beside Miss Annabel, not from choice, but because the young lady's father insisted upon it. Miss Daniels gushed and enthused as she always did. As they drove by the Corners the minister, who had been replying absently to Annabel's questions, suddenly stopped short in the middle of a sentence. His companion, leaning forward to look out of the window, saw Grace Van Horne entering the store. For an instant Annabel's face wore a very unpleasant ...
— Keziah Coffin • Joseph C. Lincoln
... guard happily. "You're doing fine. You've had us out for more than two hours. We started with twenty-five in this group and still have twenty-one. Par for the course. What happens to a tourist who wanders absently around in the Kremlin and turns up in ...
— Combat • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... her, I glanced up absently to note Nokomee's eyes blazing into my own in fury, and spaced about the room in a listening circle, a score of others. I stopped abruptly, and Nokomee lashed out at the woman beside me with a string of alien expletives that made her face flame with an anger as great as ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... Beverley said this absently in a tone of perfunctory dryness. His throat was parched, his head seemed to waver. But he was beginning to comprehend that Long-Hair, for some inscrutable reason of his own, was desirous of making a friendship between ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... looked from Reuben to Perez, whose face as he gazed absently at the coals on the hearth still wore the smile which had attracted his attention. This seemed to decide him, for as he turned again to Reub, he ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy
... not, of course not," he murmured absently; then, after a moment's thought, he said gravely: "I never really doubted your husband's innocence, now I'm sure of it; unfortunately, this does not lessen your responsibility; you were in the room, you witnessed the crime; in fact, you were ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... the young woman, seated at his brother's side, had been doing and saying. With a firm determination no longer to slight his plate, he turned his attention to it, but had scarcely eaten two mouthfuls when his treacherous thoughts stole off to Katie again. Absently laying his knife and fork down, he was soon unconscious of all that ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... walked with Farmer Jordan, behind the young men and girls, and discussed with him, somewhat absently, the war news and the ...
— In Exile and Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... work, she mixed up her faultless card catalogues and laughed at her mistakes. Once, during our busy hours of distribution, we caught her blithely granting the request of fat Mere Copillet for a cook stove and thereupon absently presenting that jovial dame with a pair of sabots, much too small for her portly foot, to the amusement of all the good wives gathered in the Red Cross office. They laughed loudly in a sympathetic crowd, and Mademoiselle ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall
... at his near-mahogany desk was deep in thought when Kate passed him. He bowed absently and she responded in the same manner. It occurred to Mr. Wentz that a time when everyone else was either borrowing, or endeavoring to, she was one of the few customers whose balances appeared ample ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... you for your kind intentions," returned Richard, absently; "it's very good of you, I'm sure." His hopes of some scheme of present release had been excited by the old man's manner, and this faint and far-off prospect of a legateeship seemed but of ...
— Bred in the Bone • James Payn
... me to wear clean lab coats. Be satisfied with a limited victory," Kramer said absently, his eyes staring unseeingly at a row of reagent bottles on the bench. Abruptly he nodded. "Fantastic," he muttered, "but it's worth a check." He left the room, slamming the door behind him in ...
— Pandemic • Jesse Franklin Bone
... saw the horse and horseman. The former was a beautiful creature, almost thoroughbred, as she knew; for every woman in the district was a horsewoman by instinct and association. The latter was a gentleman in a well-made riding suit of cords. He was riding slowly, his whip striking against his leg absently, his head bent. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... a look of supreme boredom on his handsome face, had just sauntered down to the river bank. A belt of daffodils nodded to him from the shrubbery on the farther shore. He stood and stared at them absently while ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... alone. She did not hurry on; and finding that even now there wanted another half-hour to the carrier's time, she turned into a little lane to escape the inspection of the numerous passers-by. Here all was quite lonely and still, and she sat down under a willow-tree, absently regarding the landscape, which had begun to put on the rich tones of declining summer, but which to her was as hollow and faded as a theatre by day. She could hold out no longer; burying her face in her hands, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... noticed it was a silk tile, and thought vaguely how incongruous it looked upon him, though she was used to little else among the students,—and jammed it absently down on his head, as he was accustomed to fasten on his ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... set his canvas carefully on a projecting beam and looked about him, smiling. A cat leaped down from the turkey-red lounge and came across, rubbing his legs. He bent and stroked her absently. ...
— Uncle William - The Man Who Was Shif'less • Jennette Lee
... absently, until the words finally penetrated. He looked up, studied Feldman with surprised curiosity and growing contempt, and reached for the phone. "Gimme ...
— Badge of Infamy • Lester del Rey
... the Venetian flag, so that it bore some resemblance to the Bucentaur. As soon as Pietro saw his former comrade he shouted out to him, "Hi! Signor Antonio, the best of good greetings to you; your sequins have brought me good luck." Antonio asked somewhat absently what sort of good luck he meant, and learned the important intelligence that nearly every evening Pietro had to take the Doge and Dogess in his gondola across to Giudecca, where the Doge had a nice house not far from San Giorgio Maggiore. Antonio stared at Pietro, and ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... this occasion, with appearances so against him, perplexed but not convinced, after looking for a few moments he went below and sought communion with his beloved instrument; nor did the fading of the phantasm interrupt his fiddling. When announced, he listened absently, and continued his aria unmoved by such trivialities. Cape Flyaway, as counterfeits like this are called, had lasted so long and looked so plausible that the order was given to raise steam; and when it vanished later, after the manner of its kind, the step was not countermanded, ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... long while he spoke again, smoothing her hair absently, and never noticing that he had not taken off his gloves. His gray hat was pushed aslant as ...
— Rowdy of the Cross L • B.M. Sinclair, AKA B.M. Bower
... receive the virus of the stinging epigram. Such a stop occurred in the answer just given, at the end of the allusion to the Egyptian and Idumaean. The color in the Jewish lad's cheeks deepened, and he may not have heard the rest of the speech, for he remained silent, looking absently into ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Now I must be gone. (She puts on her mask and veil quickly; then, absently): You have not told me of your last night's fray. Ah, but it must have been a hero-fight!. . . —Bid him to write. (She sends him a kiss with her fingers): ...
— Cyrano de Bergerac • Edmond Rostand
... absently. It was one of his minor fads to ignore his lineage, which ran decently back to a Colonial governor on his father's side, and to assert that he did not know his grandfather's middle name—which was accounted ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... why Mariuccia is a witch, and why my Nino, who never so much as looked at the beauties of the generone, as they came with their fathers and brothers and mothers to eat ice-cream in the Piazza Colonna, and listen to the music of a summer's evening,—Nino, who stared absently at the great ladies as they rolled over the Pincio, in their carriages, and was whistling airs to himself for practice when he strolled along the Corso, instead of looking out for pretty faces,—Nino, the cold in all things save in music, why he fulfilled Mariuccia's prophecy, little by ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford |
