"Coquetry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... another—not a sister; in the happy days gone by, You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye; Too innocent for coquetry,—too fond for idle scorning,— Oh! friend, I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning; Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon be risen My body will be out of pain—my soul be out of prison), I dreamed I stood with her, and saw the yellow sunlight shine On ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... departed for the hotel. In the dining-room he saw Mrs. Sherwood in a riding habit, eating alone. Keith hesitated, then took the vacant seat opposite. She accorded this permission cordially, but without coquetry, remarking that Sherwood often did not get in at noon. Immediately she turned the conversation to Keith's affairs, inquiring in detail as to how the settling was getting on, when they expected to get in, how they ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... in hiding wood-flowers, in disappearing pathways that seem to lead to horizons without bourn. The world is so made that the engines of labor, the most active agencies, are everywhere concealed. Nature affects a sort of coquetry in masking her operations. It costs you pains to spy her out, ingenuity to surprise her, if you would see anything but results and penetrate the secrets of her laboratories. Likewise in human society, the forces which move for good remain invisible, and even in our individual lives; what ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... his reply through his teeth. "God has given you women a plentiful supply of coquetry to start with, and on the top of that you have the milliner and the jeweller to help you; but do not think we ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... brilliant of the purest water, nay, even the chalice or paten, in case the bargain should be to her liking. My calculation was not verified; the cooper's wife was in no haste to make a bargain, and her coquetry did not get ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 14, No. 381 Saturday, July 18, 1829 • Various
... the coquetry faded from her eyes as her glance wandered waterward and became fixed on some object invisible and far ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... that passed within the dining-room. Here I paced backwards and forwards, reflecting on the events of the past few hours. I could, of course, see that for some reason or other Diane had apparently broken with De Ganache. It was not a trick of heartless coquetry—for that I gave her credit. Yet the change had been so swift and sudden that it was difficult to assign any other reason for it. So far as I was concerned I was sure my affair was utterly hopeless; but the air of the Italian campaign would doubtless cure me, and ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... forms with her, she sought the depths of the dark forest and took shelter in Sigmund's hut. The Volsung did not penetrate his sister's disguise. He deemed her nought but the gypsy she seemed, and being soon won by her coquetry, he made her his wife. Three days later she disappeared from the hut, and, returning to the palace, she resumed her own form, and when she next gave birth to a son, she rejoiced to see in his bold glance and strong frame the promise of ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... yet he was amused, by the evident coquetry the girl displayed, collecting around her a whole bevy of young fellows, for each of whom she seemed to have some gay speech, some attractive look or action. In a few minutes young Griffiths of Bodowen was at her side, brought thither by a variety of idle motives, and as her undivided ...
— The Doom of the Griffiths • Elizabeth Gaskell
... can't!" writhed Vera in coquetry, rolling her eyes up under her upper lids ... "When ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... lumbering coquetry became visible in her, and Archer found the strength to break in: "But Madame Olenska—has she gone to ...
— The Age of Innocence • Edith Wharton
... remember, for his mother made it a kind of punishment for his quarrel with Neil, that he should remain in London while she visited at Penrhyn Park, where she met with Lady Jane McPherson, whom she admired greatly, and with Daisy, whom she detested for the bold coquetry, which manifested itself so plainly after the arrival of Lord Hardy, that even Mrs. Smithers' sense of propriety was shocked, and she began to look forward with pleasure to the day when her house would be freed from the presence ...
— Bessie's Fortune - A Novel • Mary J. Holmes
... you indulged in when throwing your toils around your devoted admirer, whom I, ultimately had the honor of calling my father. Your pet vagrant, Edna, is no simpleton; she can take care of her own interests, and, accept my word for it, intends to do so. She is only practising a little harmless coquetry—toying with her victim, as fish circle round and round the bait which they fully intend to swallow. Were she Aphaea herself, I should say Gordon's success is as fixed as ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... teeth to polish the nails, the green rouge of Egypt, which turns to a most beautiful pink on touching the skin, powders to darken the eyelashes and eyebrows, and all the refinements that feminine coquetry could invent. Other litters were freighted with purple robes of the finest linen and of all possible shades from the incarnadine hue of the rose to the deep crimson of the blood of the grape; calasires of the linen of Canopus, which is thrown all white into the vat of the dyer, ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... then she had been living vividly and fervently. The question with her, now, was how best to voice herself—the self that Jude in no wise knew. Womanlike, she did not want to plunge into what might prove an abyss. She wanted to take her own way, but with a half-unconscious coquetry she desired to drag her captives whither ...
— Joyce of the North Woods • Harriet T. Comstock
... Gainsborough, Lawrence, and Reynolds, traces of their manner being evident in her work. She renders the best type of feminine seductiveness with delicacy and grace; she avoids the trivial and gross, but pictures all the allurements of an innocent coquetry. ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... the most bitter prejudice could have detected no trace of it. On the contrary, the embarrassment which she could not yet wholly subdue lent her an air of girlish timidity. All in all, Barine was a charming creature, who bewitched men by her vivacity, her grace, and her exquisite voice, not by coquetry and pertness. That she possessed unusual mental endowments Cleopatra did not believe. Barine had only ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... need not waste three hours of the short working day in dressing and undressing, and combing your hair. You need not throw away the very seed—time of life on music, though you are unmusical to the backbone; nor yet on your three "C's—croquet, crochet, and coquetry: for Civilization and sound Law have opened to you one great, noble, and difficult profession with three branches, two of which Nature intended you for. The path is arduous, but flowers grow beside it, and ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... went to Paris, where she soon took rank with the best jeunes premieres of the capital. She has been justly called the most loveable actress upon the French stage; so graceful, so soft and womanly, displaying alternately such genuine feeling and nature, and such arch coquetry of manner; always such great freshness of style. We were pleased to see her properly appreciated during her last visit to London, both by press and public. Trained to the stage from so early an age—although ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... on the contrary, in reality she did. Malicorne repeated to her so often his protestation of indifference, that she finished, sometimes, by believing him; and then she believed she detested Malicorne. If she tried to bring him back by coquetry, Malicorne played the coquette better than she could. But what made Montalais hold to Malicorne in an indissoluble fashion, was that Malicorne always came cram full of fresh news from the court and the city; Malicorne always brought to Blois a fashion, ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... budding womanhood without contamination in such an atmosphere? Self-reliant she had shown herself to be, but tender in her pitying care of the injured boy and innocently free from coquetry or cynical suspicion in her frank acceptance of the stranger. There had been open amusement in her tone at his suggestion of danger to her from any in Limasito, and genuine love and pride when she spoke of her father and his calling. How ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... their relation, affirming, in self-defense, a retrospective astuteness, a sense of the impermanence of the tenderer sentiments, that almost put Deering in the fatuous position of having mistaken coquetry for surrender. And she ended gracefully with a plea for the continuance of the friendly regardwhich she had "always understood" to be the basis of their sympathy. The document, when completed, seemed to her worthy of what she conceived to ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... like coquetry. In any other girl it would have been coquetry, Pendleton decided. But, looking into the face before him now, Pendleton knew that it was not coquetry. He knew, too, suddenly, why Pollyanna had seemed so different from any girl he had ever known. Something of her old literal ...
— Pollyanna Grows Up • Eleanor H. Porter
... had passed away, and I feared to say that I could see no reason other than coquetry for her conduct, I feared the red-haired tigress would ...
— Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall • Charles Major
... get no other," said Elizabeth, with a ring of sincerity in her voice that left no room for coquetry. "I am sorry, but I ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... de Saint-Hereen had been away for nearly six months on a political mission. The Countess, whether from sheer giddiness, or in obedience to the countless instincts of woman's coquetry, or to essay its power—with all the vanity of a frivolous fine lady, all the capricious waywardness of a child—was amusing herself, during her husband's absence, by playing with the passion of a clever but heartless man, distracted (so he ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... a most gracious salute to us all, and, glancing at me with a spice of coquetry, to which she was evidently not unaccustomed, was pleased to observe, that I was ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... your Caesar and carry it through," Frederick wrote to Jordan after the invasion of Silesia. Gaily, with light step as if going to a dance, the King entered upon the fields of his victories. There was still cheerful enjoyment of life, sweet coquetry with verse, and intellectual conversation with his intimates on the pleasures of the day, on God, nature, and immortality, which he considered the spice of life. But the great task upon which he had entered began to have its effect upon his soul even in the early weeks, even before he had passed ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... you that they fretted because of her coquetry. One hour it seemed that Pitou had gained her heart; the next her encouragement has been all to Tricotrin. Sometimes ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... deliberately manipulating her public; and there must indeed have been a certain exhilaration in attaining results so considerable by means involving so little conscious effort. Mrs. Amyot's art was simply an extension of coquetry: ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... was accompanied was not so tall, and of a much slighter form; her limbs delicately moulded, and her features more attractive than beautiful. There was that about her whole demeanour which is expressively termed coquetry, not the coquetry of action, but of feeling: her eyes were dark and brilliant, her mouth full and pouting; and the nose was only saved from vulgarity by that turn, to describe which we are compelled to use a foreign term—it was un peu retrousse: ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... stranger who visits England might, with equal justice, draw the characters of the women there, from those which he might meet with on board the ships in one of the naval ports, or in the purlieus of Covent-Garden and Drury-Lane. I must however allow, that they are all completely versed in the art of coquetry, and that very few of them fix any bounds to their conversation. It is therefore no wonder that they have ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... and such a bunch of coquetry as I have never seen. She raised one objection after another; but Tom was a firm man, and his late experiences in the wilderness had made him impatient of trifling. He had promised the Kentucky settlers, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... simplicity and archness. It was something like an outline of Greuze touched up by Gavarni. All her youthful attractions were cleverly set off by a toilette which, although very simple, attested in her that innate science of coquetry which all women possess from their first swaddling clothes to their bridal robe. Louise appeared besides to have made an especial study of the theory of attitudes, and assumed before Rodolphe, who examined her with the artistic eye, a number of seductive poses. Her neatly ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... will, having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration, without the most indirect invitation of yours, must proceed from the man, to render it permanent and valuable; and nothing short of good sense and an easy, unaffected conduct, can draw the line between prudery and coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say that it rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette dies in celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others, by encouraging looks, ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... So, Jessica and Gering were affianced. And the buckle she had sent him he wore now in the folds of his lace! How could he know what comes from a woman's wavering sympathies, what from her inborn coquetry, and what from love itself? He was merely a man with ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... are in the mean time other dangerous resources which may tempt the unoccupied and uninterested girl into their excitements. Those whose minds are of too active and vivacious a nature to live on without an object, may too easily find one in the dangerous and selfish amusements of coquetry—in the seeking for admiration, and its enjoyment when obtained. The very woman who might have been the most happy herself in the enjoyment of intellectual pursuits, and the most extensively useful to others, is often the one ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... shoulders. This little detail will show the care which she gave to her person; it was her pride to rejoice the eyes of the old baron. What a charming, delicate attention! When you see a woman displaying in her own home the coquetry which most women spend on a single sentiment, believe me, that woman is as noble a mother as she is a wife; she is the joy and the flower of the home; she knows her obligations as a woman; in her soul, in her tenderness, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... generally in the absence, not in the presence, of the beloved object. For otherwise we might possibly complain of their ingratitude and deafness, with the same reason as Pasiphae doth of her bull, whom she endeavoured to engage by all the coquetry practised with good success in the drawing-room on the much more sensible as well as tender hearts of the ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... Millie is as coquettish as the rose that lifts its fair face to the sun, and the breeze, and the bee, and expects to be admired. She is as innocent as the rose, too, but that fact Miss Brown would never associate with coquetry. ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... for the rest of the day. She returned before the week was out, however, and, after that, she continued to visit them at intervals of a few days. The sudden note of blue, even in the distance it seemed to connote coquetry, was the signal for all the men to stop work. They could not think clearly or consecutively when she was about. She was one of those women whose presence creates disturbance, perturbation, unrest. The very sunshine seemed alive, the very air seemed vibrant with her. Even when ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... on her funnel gave her a touch of coquetry, but she had the drabness of senility; she was worn out, and working, when she should have gone to the junk pile years before. But her very antiquity charmed me, for her scars and wrinkles told of hard service in the China Sea; ...
— The Devil's Admiral • Frederick Ferdinand Moore
... magnetized him in the same way. The words she caught in regard to leaving France struck a chill to her heart. A funereal gloom settled over the room. Additional dismay overwhelmed her as D'Argenton wound up with a vigorous tirade against French women,—their lightness and coquetry, the insincerity of their smiles, and the venality of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... him she was entirely in earnest, and that she was incapable of the sort of coquetry which he ascribed to her. To punish her for this rejection he spread the report of Hervey's entanglement with a beautiful girl named Virginia, whose picture he had sent to an exhibition. He also roused Lady Delacour's jealousy into the belief that Belinda meant to marry her ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... the study of her particular pose, as it seemed to him. If it were not a pose, then her husband was a short-sighted fool and he had no patience with him. The time was past for childish innocence and folly. Coquetry was very captivating, but to play with fire was dangerous, and if he mistook not, she would some day arrive at an understanding of human nature when it was too late to save her self-respect. Her beauty appealed to his artistic sense, but he ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi
... doll eyes rolled a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge mansion, one of the most ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... her manoeuvre, half economy and half coquetry, with the Chinese dress. He was still more touched by the gesture of extinguishing a light. For a year or two past Mrs. Prohack had been putting forward a theory that an average degree of illumination tried her eyes, and the household ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... hesitated. It was certainly one of those gross and lying pieces of flattery which we all of us hear at times. Nevertheless, I resisted the instinctive impulse that would have made me move away. Is not modesty in such a case merely another stratagem of our coquetry? We flee, the man pursues and the wrong ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... is a coquetry in danger as well as in pleasure, and he embellished his youth with every ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... scraped their feet by the half hour together on his door-step in winter evenings. Sally was a belle; she knew it and liked it, as every honest girl does;—and she would have been a belle without the aid of her father's wide farm and pine-tree shillings; for she was fresh and lovely, with a spice of coquetry, but a true woman's heart beneath ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... of mystery to the object they drape or veil. They soften the outlines and the colours beneath them, while they permit them to peep through their meshes. They are hardly to be included in what is called high art, having more affinity with grace, refinement and coquetry, than with ...
— Needlework As Art • Marian Alford
... her which suggested the luxury of love. He felt as if somehow she could be reached why, he could not have said. She did not bear any outward marks of her previous experience. There were no evidences of coquetry about her, but still he "felt that he might." He was inclined to make the venture on his first visit, but business called him away; he left after four days and was absent from Cleveland for three weeks. Jennie thought he was gone for good, and she experienced ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... fixing on him an eager gaze, made him sit by her side. On touching that much-loved hand, the young man started, and a sudden shivering ran through his veins. The maiden perceived it, and a gleam of satisfaction, and almost coquetry, sparkled in her eyes. Poor woman's heart! Even in the most solemn moments she is always a coquette. Such ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... spoils, was by her side, and, having restored her nerves with champagne, proceeded to agitate them again with the warmest protestations of affection. The child with the day's experience before her, only half-believed him, but the spirit of coquetry woke up, and she resolved to try and make him care for her as much as ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... glimmer of coquetry she had ever deliberately displayed; and at the same instant she became aware that something new had been suddenly awakened in her—something which stole like a glow through her veins, exciting her with ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... admirable stupidity girls lend themselves to reap the benefit of the education which is imposed upon them in France; we give them in charge to nursery maids, to companions, to governesses who teach them twenty tricks of coquetry and false modesty, for every single noble and true idea which they impart to them. Girls are brought up as slaves, and are accustomed to the idea that they are sent into the world to imitate their grandmothers, to breed canary birds, to make herbals, to water little ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... was already closing in when they mounted their horses and withdrew, both well pleased with their visit—for the young lord was in pursuit of amusement only, and seeing at a glance the coyness of the heiress, and the somewhat forward coquetry of her sister, he had accommodated himself to circumstances, and determined that a passing flirtation with so pretty a girl, and a short sejour at a house so well-appointed as Ditton, would be no unpleasant substitute ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... conviction, and therefore easy grace, tea-gown and evening dress. Both how and when still annoy us as a nation. On the street we are supreme when tailleur. In carriage attire the French woman is supreme, by reason of that innate Latin coquetry which makes her feel line and its significance. The ideal pose for any hat ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... entered the metropolitan mosque at Kashghar, and met a youth incomparably lovely, and exquisitely handsome; such as they have mentioned in resemblance of him:—"Thy master instructed thee in every bold and captivating grace; he taught thee coquetry and confidence, tyranny and violence." I have seen no mortal with such a form and temper, stateliness and manner; perhaps he learned these ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 2, Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous
... inclined to look on the serious side of life if she could avoid it; but beneath all there was a real Yolanda, with a great, tender heart and a shrewd, helpful brain. She was somewhat of a coquette, but coquetry salts a woman and gives her relish. It had been a grievous waste on the part of Providence to give to any girl such eyes as Yolanda's and to withhold from her a modicum of coquetry with which to use them. Taken ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... she said, with that coquetry which somehow or other is in the heart of every young girl, "I have often been sorry that I am not able to read, but never so much so as when your housekeeper brought me your letter. I kept the paper in my hands, which spoke to other people, and which ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... too," continued the lively girl, taking it off, and shaking down a profusion of sable ringlets, which, half laughing, half blushing, she separated with her white slender fingers, in order to clear them away from her beautiful face and piercing hazel eyes. If there was any coquetry in the action, it was well disguised by the careless indifference of her manner. I could not help saying, "that, judging of the family from what I saw, I should suppose the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... his feeling was the very sublimity of maiden innocence if it were real; if not, well, the coquetry ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... got in between the sheets, and yelled forth a fine, great, ample, and curious cry, when she saw, when she smelt the fresh vigour of this hanged man and the sweet perfume of his manly youth; then sprang away from him out of coquetry. But as she did not know he was really dead, she came back again, believing he was ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac
... of life, and formed the Lethe in whose waters oblivion was gladly sought. The public afterward became so practical in its tastes, so sober in its desires, that neither the spirit of the actor nor the coquetry of the actress had power to attract an audience. The taste and love for art were superseded by criticism and low intrigues, the theatre became a mere political engine, intended to divert the thoughts ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... and deceit begets deceit, then Wunpost was repaid according to his merits when Wilhelmina laid claim to his dog. She did it in a way that was almost coquettish, for coquetry is a form of deceit; but in the morning, when he was gone, she put his dog on his trail and followed along behind on her mule. And this, of course, was rank treachery no less, for her purpose was to discover his mine. If she found it, she had decided in the small hours of the night, she would ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... a chair, in a quiet disregard of her visitor's presence; took a brown holland sunbonnet from the wall, clapped it over her browner hair and hanging braids, and tied it under her chin with apparently no sense of coquetry in the act—becoming though it was—and without glancing at him. Alas for Madison's ethics! The torment of her worldly speech and youthful contempt was nothing to this tacit ignoring of the manhood of her lover—this silent acceptance of him as something ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... show of Kohl and coquetry! * By what thy shape displays of lissome symmetry! By what thy liplets store of honey dew and wine! * By what thy mind adorns of gracious kindly gree! To me thy sight dream-visioned, O my hope! exceeds * The happiest ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... practice which has changed all the native nomenclature of Oceania into a veritable litany. One island visited may be especially noticed; it was named the island of la Gente Hermosa on account of the beauty of its inhabitants, and of the fair colour and coquetry of its women, who, as the Spaniards declared, even bore away the palm for grace and attractiveness from their own fellow-countrywomen of Lima, whose beauty is proverbial. This island, according to Quiros, was situated upon the same parallel as Santa Cruz, to which he intended ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... table. Mademoiselle d'Aubigne passed eight or ten months in the intimate society of this philosophical woman. But her conscience, or her prudery, not permitting her to tolerate longer a manner of life in which she seemed to detect license, she quitted Ninon, advising her to renounce coquetry, whilst the other was advising her ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... accepted his attentions with a finished coquetry that was far from childlike, a flush on her satin cheek, a dimple puckering the corner of her mouth, and silky lashes lowered over her satisfied eyes. She was inevitably precocious in many ways, but she was young enough still to fancy ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... frank, primitive, simple. They are masculine—and in their actions you never get a trace of coyness, hesitancy, affectation or trifling coquetry. They have nothing to conceal: they look at you out of frank, open eyes. They know the pains of earth too well to dance nimbly through life and laugh the hours away. They are sober, serious, earnest, but not grim. Their faces are bronzed by sun and wind; their hands are not concealed by gloves; ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... the truth must be told. If Richard had scattered his love-making through the month of her convalescence, or if he had made his avowal in a different mood, perhaps Margaret might have met him with some natural coquetry. But Richard's tone and manner had been such as to suppress any instinct of the kind. His declaration, moreover, had amazed her. Margaret's own feelings had been more or less plain to her that past month, and she had diligently disciplined herself to accept Richard's friendship, since it seemed ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... day, she was not late by coquetry, but because she had changed her dress at the last minute, and because she was afraid of letting him think her eager. She saw him at once standing under the colonnade, looking by no means imperturbable, and marked the change in his face when he caught sight of her, with ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that a woman may be able to keep a cook, may be finely educated, may possess the sentiment of coquetry, may have the right to pass whole hours in her boudoir lying on a sofa, and may live a life of soul, she must have at least six thousand francs a year if she lives in the country, and twenty thousand if she lives at Paris. These two financial limits will suggest ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... struggling with the rest to live and breed. Beneath each hedgerow in the springtime we can read our own romances in the making—the first faint stirring of the blood, the roving eye, the sudden marvellous discovery of the indispensable She, the wooing, the denial, hope, coquetry, despair, contention, rivalry, hate, jealousy, love, bitterness, victory, and death. Our comedies, our tragedies, are being played upon each blade of grass. In fur and ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... greeted by the family. The girls rose and courtesied, blushing with the coquetry of their race. Roldan cared little for girls at any time, and to-night was doubly abstracted, his ear straining at every distant hoof-beat. He retired as early as he politely could, but not to sleep. Indeed, he became so nervous that he could not ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton
... amorous and languishing, without being lascivious, and is as powerfully marked by gay coquetry, ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... peace of the same husbands, that he would forbid coquetry, as well as lace, and gold or silver embroidery. I have bought the law on purpose, so that Isabella may read it aloud; and, by and by, when she is at leisure, it shall be our entertainment after ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... absent Slade had been mentioned by no means favourably. Farley was far from prepossessing either in appearance or words or actions. As for Carmen, even the tender glances that he had surprised might be explained by the coquetry of a Delilah. ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... steps in silence. Then she turned and spoke softly over her shoulder. There was not a touch of coquetry in her simple manner, yet it had an ...
— The Second Violin • Grace S. Richmond
... exaggeration of the sublime leads to inflation, and affectation of nobleness to preciosity, in the same manner affectation of grace ends in coquetry, and that of dignity ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Here, with the coquetry of one who knows that his words are of interest, the driver began to look around him with an air of abstraction and to ...
— The Cabman's Story - The Mysteries of a London 'Growler' • Arthur Conan Doyle
... young girl walking before him in company with a delicate looking boy of seven or eight years. Something in the carriage of her graceful figure, something in a certain consciousness and ostentation of coquetry toward her youthful escort, attracted his attention. Yet it struck him that she was neither related to the child nor accustomed to children's ways, and that she somewhat unduly emphasized this to the passers-by, particularly ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... he stood beside her, his hand on the sorrel's neck, his calm blue eyes raised to hers. Her gaze lingered on the fair 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 ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... feet into them. But for the present she remained where she was, and not merely because her shoes were off and she could not well get away, but because it was not in her nature not to wish every one to be happy and comfortable. She was as far as any woman can be from coquetry, but she could not see any manner of man without trying to please him. "I'm sorry he's isn't here," she said, and then, as there seemed nothing for him to answer, she ventured, "It's very ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... prettier or more charmingly gowned than Marian. In the light of this proximity he watched her with a new attention, and he saw that her father, too, studied her covertly, as though realizing that he had a grown daughter on his hands. Her way with Harwood was not without coquetry; she tapped his arm with her fan lightly when he refused to enter into a discussion of his attentions, of which she protested she knew much, to Miss Bosworth. He admitted having called on Miss Bosworth once; her brother was a Yale man, and had asked him to the house ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... and Rita's coquetry deserted her, leaving her mortified and piqued. She stared at Pyne, biting ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... respect to the late but unlamented grandmother. I soon gained the reputation—which I bravely sustained—of being far above the idle, cruel dealer in human hearts; I was said to be full of old-fashioned coquetry, but not even flirtatious; that I was gracious, had pleasing manners, but was the very soul of sincerity, and would never be guilty of leading men on and on. I was frequently contrasted with that devilish brown-eyed beauty—a recognized flirt, ready to sacrifice ...
— The Inner Sisterhood - A Social Study in High Colors • Douglass Sherley et al.
... he was suspicious of her, but this coquetry was noble and designed to please and ...
— Mummery - A Tale of Three Idealists • Gilbert Cannan
... with their trust; for even in dry sunny weather mud seems a spontaneous production that renders goloshes a necessity. And when frost holds the high-standing city in its frigid grasp the extreme cold forbids any idea of coquetry, and thickly lined boots with cloth uppers—a species of foot-gear that in grace of outline is decidedly suggestive of "arctics"—become ...
— A Versailles Christmas-Tide • Mary Stuart Boyd
... and shall have all you ask," said I, giving him the letter. "It is the language of the heart, and of a heart strongly attached to you. I can see affection in every line of it. Of course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there ever a pretty woman, who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem: never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... dilemma; she had not written either out of coquetry or because she did not really care for him. If the former were the true reason, she was cruel; if the latter, she ought to tell him so at once, and he would try to master himself. On no hypothesis was she justified in leaving him without ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... a lace cap," cried Marietta, placing it with great coquetry around the black braids of Lucretia's glossy hair; while the latter, quite reconciled to the wonders that were being enacted around her, was profoundly engaged in admiring herself in ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... passing through her mind was utterly foreign to any coquetry. Vere had no more feeling of sex in regard to Ruffo than she would have had if she had been a boy herself. The sympathy she felt with him was otherwise founded, deep down in mysteries beyond the mysteries ...
— A Spirit in Prison • Robert Hichens
... those of Cimon, but by the ruin of a city united with ourselves in amity and origin." The ready minister replied to the invective of Elpinice by a line from Archilochus, which, in alluding to the age and coquetry of the lady, probably answered the oratorical purpose of securing the laugh on his own ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... imagined: the one was a frivolous, volatile fairy, the other a dignified and reserved woman. She also was arrayed in black garments, but these were made in the plainest manner, and showed none of the coquetry of woe such as had characterised Mrs. Vrain's elaborate costume. The look of sorrow on the face of Diana was in keeping with her mourning apparel, and she welcomed Lucian with a subdued courtesy which prepossessed ...
— The Silent House • Fergus Hume
... advance why should he not accept, if not the help, yet the offer of the help she had almost made? That would and could bind him to nothing. He understood her well enough to have no slightest suspicion of any coquetry such as a fool like Cornelius would have imagined. He was nevertheless a fool, also, only of another and deeper sort. It needs brains ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... unhappily not the means to regain that proud heart," said Count Mantcuffel, shrugging his shoulders. "With tears and languishing she will lose her influence, and only gain contempt. You who are the mistress of love and coquetry should understand that, and instruct your beautiful pupil. Now, however, comes the most important question. What of the marriage ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... brightly, alluringly, apparently so simply; yet her first act showed the perception behind that rosy and golden face, and the demure eyes whose lids languished now and then—to the unknowing with an air of coquetry, to the knowing—did any know her?—as one would shade one's eyes to see a landscape clearly, or make out a distant figure. As Valmond bowed, a thought seemed to fetch down the pink eyelids, and she stretched out her hand, which he took ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of pleasing and of coquetry come by nature to the gentler sex; and if in Italy they add to them a habit of intrigue, I wonder how much they are to blame, never being in anywise trusted? They do not differ from persons of any age or sex in that country, ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... no coquetry in her nature, else would have noticed the earnest look in the boy's brown eyes that accompanied his significantly spoken words. As it was, she ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... like lashing herself for having felt like that and for having replied, in a spirit of pure coquetry, in a voice of studied, cool, ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... trickled down his face, to be mopped up by his bandanna. Such was the ordeal of talking hollow sentiment to a cool and self-possessed woman. She enjoyed the exhibition for a time,—as what woman would not? But the waves of her trouble rushed back upon her, and the spirit of mischief and coquetry ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... are somewhat engaged with one another, but almost equally so with the world around them. They think it well to vary existence with plenty of coquetry and display. First, the graceful reverence to one another, then to their neighbors. Exhibit your grace in the chasse,—made apparently solely for the purpose of dechasseing;—then civil intimacy between ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat, which suited him better with the coat than a black one, sent for the hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling iron, for he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his eagerness to ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... let me send my coach for you? Mr. Soame Jenyns has been dying with impatience; some of us thought you would not come; others thought it only coquetry; but come, let us repair the time as we can, and introduce you to one another without ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... had rare powers of conversation and wit. If to these she had not added the dangerous desire to please, and the wish to hold other hearts than the royal one she had enslaved, in thraldom, all might, perhaps, have been well. But, alas like many other beautiful women, she had a strong tendency to coquetry. How severely she suffered for it, it is the purpose of this history to relate. An excellent description of her has been given by a contemporary writer, the Comte de Chateaubriand, who, while somewhat disparaging her personal attractions, speaks in rapturous terms of her ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... line-back steer had many rivals. Almost daily he fought other steers of his own age and weight, who were paying altogether too marked attention to his crony. Although he never outwardly upbraided her for it, her coquetry was a matter of no small concern with him. At last one day in April she forced matters to an open rupture between them. A dark red, arch-necked, curly-headed animal came bellowing defiance across their feeding-grounds. ...
— Cattle Brands - A Collection of Western Camp-fire Stories • Andy Adams
... came into focus and would not stir from her contemplation. Yes, it was Jerry-Jo's personality that disturbed her, and it was Farwell's words that had torn the shield she herself had erected, and set the truth free. Yes, she had played with Jerry-Jo; she had tested her coquetry and charm upon him for lack of better material. In her outbreaks of youthful spirits she had claimed him as prey because the others of his sex were less desirable. Jerry-Jo had that subtle, physical attraction that responded to her youthful allurements, but the young fellow himself, taken seriously, ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... room, however, instinct decided for her that any approach to coquetry would be a mistake, if she sought to make a good impression at the beginning. It was with an air of amiable candor, then, that she said, "Monsieur desire to speak with me?" She added helpfully, "I ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... While this coquetry or shyness is exhibited by John Shark, the whole after-part of the ship is so clustered with heads that not an inch of spare room is to be had for love or money. The rigging, the mizen-top, and even the gaff, out to the very peak, the ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... domesticity and dignity to Sissy. In Split it bred and fostered a spirit of coquetry; she believed herself to be very French in long skirts. "I'll just say she said 'Yes' when I asked her. She never knows what she says ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... old women, with their jewels and patches, their extraordinary head-dresses and their deep, courtesies, painful by reason of the aching bones of three-score and ten. The young princesses dared not raise their eyes to these representatives of by-gone coquetry, for they were afraid to commit a crime—they were afraid that they might laugh. But the ladies of honor, safe behind the hoops of the queen and her sisters-in-law made merry over the magnificent old ruins. Madame de Noailles was so busy with the front, that she overlooked ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... the lemons with a little gesture expressing amusement, triumph, and a dash of coquetry. Laurie's eyes glowed as he looked at her. For the second time, in her actual presence, a sharp thrill shot through him. Oh, if she were always like this!—gay, happy, without that incredible, unbelievable background of tragedy and mystery! ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... eye from omnibus and pavement rested gratefully on her fresh, trim presence as she passed young and erect, with the light of determination shining through the quiet self-possession of her face. She was dressed as English girls do dress for town, without either coquetry or harshness: her collarless blouse confessed a pretty neck, her eyes were bright and steady, and her dark hair waved loosely ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... innocent of coquetry, and yet I possessed all the instincts of a woman. I had seen that in his eyes which gave me faith—he remembered the past; he had found me attractive; he felt a desire to meet me again. I knew all this—but was that all? Was it a mere passing fervor, ...
— Beyond the Frontier • Randall Parrish
... Collier in the strictest principles of piety and virtue; she not only knows she will be always chaste, but she knows why she will be so.[1] Mr. Thrale is now by dint of disease quite out of the question, so I am a disinterested spectator; but her coquetry is very dangerous indeed, and I wish she were married that there might be an end on't. Mr. Thrale loves her, however, sick or well, better by a thousand degrees than he does me or any one else, and even ...
— Autobiography, Letters and Literary Remains of Mrs. Piozzi (Thrale) (2nd ed.) (2 vols.) • Mrs. Hester Lynch Piozzi
... putting-up of some thick blond locks that had escaped, and the rolling-up of her sleeves over a pair of strong, rounded arms, Rand lingered near her. All trace of the "Pet's" previous professional coquetry was gone,—perhaps it was only replaced by a more natural one; but as she looked up, and caught sight of Rand's interested face, she laughed again, and colored a little. Slight as was the blush, it was sufficient ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... nodded, not brazenly or crudely or coarsely, not even bravely, but in utter simplicity. For the time she was wholly free of woman coquetry. It was as though the elements had left her also elemental. Her words now were of the earth, the air, the ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... than her way of showing that she gives her all, Winsome laid her either hand on her lover's shoulders and drew his face down to hers—laying her lips to his of her own free will and accord, without shame in giving, or coquetry of refusal, in that full kiss of first surrender which a woman may give once, but never twice, ...
— The Lilac Sunbonnet • S.R. Crockett
... colossal, half barbaric, trivial, and sublime. An Homeric hero struggles among the sneers of a stupid crowd, a herd of brawling and hobbling ninnies. A violin solo, in a sort of concerto, describes the seductions, the coquetry, and the degraded wickedness of woman. Then strident trumpet-blasts sound the attack; and it is beyond me to give an idea of the terrible charge of cavalry that follows, which makes the earth tremble and our hearts leap; nor can I describe how an iron determination ...
— Musicians of To-Day • Romain Rolland
... scenes in this play, though not so highly wrought as in some others, have often much sweetness of sentiment and expression. There is something pretty and playful in the conversation of Julia with her maid, when she shows such a disposition to coquetry about receiving the letter from Proteus; and her behaviour afterwards and her disappointment, when she finds him faithless to his vows, remind us at a distance of Imogen's tender constancy. Her answer to Lucetta, who advises her against following her ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... indemnified herself in her own way by coquetry and flirtations, and she was soon gossipped about as much as her husband. But those that whispered and chattered about her felt their consciences prick them when they carried their backbiting further; the young wife could never be accused of ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... round my hips. My thin face was nearly covered by my hair, which was flattened down by my hood. My eyes could not be seen, and only my mouth served to show that this barrel was a human being. Furious with myself for my pretentious coquetry, and ashamed of my own weakness in having been so content with the pitiful, insincere flattery of people who were making fun of me, I decided to remain as I was as a punishment for my stupid vanity. There were a number of strangers among us, who nudged each other, pointing ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... day in accumulating details in regard to Dr. and Mrs. Zabriskie's life previous to the death of Mr. Hasbrouck. I learned from sources it would be unwise to quote just here, that Mrs. Zabriskie had not lacked enemies to charge her with coquetry; that while she had never sacrificed her dignity in public, more than one person had been heard to declare that Dr. Zabriskie was fortunate in being blind, since the sight of his wife's beauty would have but poorly compensated him for the pain ...
— The Golden Slipper • Anna Katharine Green
... a sister, in the happy days gone by, You'd have known her by the merriment that sparkled in her eye; Too innocent for coquetry, too fond for idle scorning, O, friend! I fear the lightest heart makes sometimes heaviest mourning. Tell her the last night of my life (for ere the moon be risen My body will be out of pain, my soul be out of prison), I dreamed ...
— Our Boys - Entertaining Stories by Popular Authors • Various
... At bimbangs the women often put on their dancing dress in the public hall, letting that garment which they mean to lay aside dexterously drop from under, as the other passes over the head, but sometimes, with an air of coquetry, displaying as if by chance enough to warm youthful imaginations. Both men and women anoint themselves before company when they prepare to dance; the women their necks and arms, and the men their breasts. They also paint each others faces; ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... jewellery in the baggage-room, dearest father, and untouched of course. We are fortunate that our passing wants did not extend beyond our comfort and luckily they are not of a nature to be much prized by barbarians. Coquetry and a ship have little in common, and Mademoiselle Viefville and myself had not much out to tempt ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... heir-apparent, too, could not entirely exclude him from her sympathies. This lady had two daughters, and they found in their half-brother a pleasant playmate. Every one was pleased to greet him, and there was already a winning coquetry in his manners, which amused people, and made them like to play with him. We need not allude to his studies in detail, but on musical instruments, such as the flute and the koto,[16] he also ...
— Japanese Literature - Including Selections from Genji Monogatari and Classical - Poetry and Drama of Japan • Various |
