"Flirtation" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... such a one would mean something different from friendship,—something that would be an injury to Lily Dale. A week had hardly passed since he had sworn a life's constancy to Lily Dale,—had sworn it, not to her only, but to himself; and now he was giving way to a flirtation with this woman, not because he liked it himself, but because he was too weak to keep ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... moral coarseness is pointed out in the passage where Capt. Hall says, he never saw a flirtation all the time he was in ...
— Domestic Manners of the Americans • Fanny Trollope
... and the veneer. He made the mistake of thinking that Tannis was what she seemed to be—a fairly well-educated, up-to-date young woman with whom a friendly flirtation was just what it was with white womankind—the pleasant amusement of an hour or season. It was a mistake—a very big mistake. Tannis understood something of piano playing, something less of grammar and Latin, and something less ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... about; it is an old device of young gentlemen who wish to revenge themselves just a little for what they think a slight. Of course you have never given a thought to Miss Doran, who, as you say, would never dream of carrying on a flirtation, for she knows how things are between you and Madeline, and she is a young lady of very proper behaviour. In no case, as you of course understand, could she be so indelicate as anything of this kind would imply. No; but you are vexed with Madeline about ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... "you're a very different sort from the young Frenchwoman the doctor had here before you came—all paint and powder, busy making herself up whenever she thought you weren't looking, always ready for a flirtation." She made a grimace. "Not that she got very far with the doctor, I may tell you," she added, then nodding good-bye, joined ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... after this deliverance. Yes, certainly Mr. Brownleigh was a good man. He was the one man of culture, education, refinement, who had come her way in many a year who had patiently and persistently and gloriously refused her advances at a mild flirtation, and refused to understand them, yet remained her friend and reverenced hero. He was a good man, and she knew it, for she was a very pretty woman ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... all nonsense. Beatrice must have been thinking of some other Geoffrey—or it was an accident of something. Why, Mr. Davies, if you for one moment really believed that dear Beatrice could be guilty of such a shameless thing as to carry on a flirtation with a married man, would you have asked her to marry you? Would you still think of asking such a woman as she must ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... innocent as she looks—or used to look—and does not know the perfide tongue of the perfide Albion well enough to be aware that nothing shocking is said, and that it is pretended that the cocotte is a mere kindly friend, the collage a trifling flirtation, the debauche a viceless lark, and that the foulest conduct of husband or wife does not reach a real breach of the commandment more often broken in England than the rest ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... putting under her feet the baser impulses that mar her character. Granville is considered by the world exceedingly handsome and agreeable, and many,—yes, the majority of women, would have yielded, and indulged in a 'harmless flirtation,' where Salome stood firm. There was something akin to the scornful ring of Rachel's voice in that child's tones, when she told Gerard he presumed on his position as guest; and I will wager my hand that her large eyes did not ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... dudgeon. She had not yet completed her flirtation with Mr. Bowie, and felt it hard to have her one amusement in life snatched out of ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... the guests were too deep in sake and flirtation to be aware of the break-up; and the last vision granted to Geoffrey of the M.P.—the fat man with the wen—was of a kind of Turkey Trot going on in a corner of the room, and the thick arms of the legislator disappearing up ...
— Kimono • John Paris
... to take pleasure in the indecent farces of actors, and to be moderate in dress. Then, as ever, preachers expressed their horror of the ruinous extravagance of women, their false hair, their rouge, and their dresses that were too long or too short. They also reprobated their love of flirtation. It was, however, in those days a young girl's recognised duty, when a knight arrived in the household, to exercise the rites of hospitality, to disarm him, give him his bath, and if necessary massage him to help him to go to sleep. It is not surprising that the ...
— Little Essays of Love and Virtue • Havelock Ellis
... "Why, Landry never really cared for me. It was all the silliest kind of flirtation. The moment he knew you better, I stood ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... not have behaved like a blackguard to Mrs. Keith- Wessington. My notion is that the work of the Katabundi Settlement ran him off his legs, and that he took to brooding and making much of an ordinary P. & 0. flirtation. He certainly was engaged to Miss Mannering, and she certainly broke off the engagement. Then he took a feverish chill and all that nonsense about ghosts developed. Overwork started his illness, kept it alight, and killed him poor devil. Write him off to the System—one ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... he found more amusing than a short sojourn at a popular summer hotel among the mountains or by the sea, with its constant round of drives, rides, tennis and golf matches, picnics, "germans," bathing, boating, and loafing, all permeated by flirtation of the most audacious and innocent description. The focus of the whole carnival is found in the "piazza" or veranda, and no prettier sight in its way can be imagined than the groups and rows of "rockers" and wicker chairs, each occupied by a lithe young girl in a summer frock, ...
— The Land of Contrasts - A Briton's View of His American Kin • James Fullarton Muirhead
... that a change in the tone of the hum announced the approach of the master. And it appeared that, no matter what a girl might be doing, she began hurriedly to do something else the moment she spied Witherspoon coming toward her. The quick signs of flirtation, signals along the downward track of morality, subsided whenever this ruler came within sight; and the smirk bargain-counter miss would actually turn from the grinning idiocy of the bullet-headed fellow who had come in to admire her and would deign to wait on a poorly dressed woman who had failed ...
— The Colossus - A Novel • Opie Read
... suddenly cut by a scream of vacuous laughter, probably that of an exuberant Irish maid-servant, to whom silences are made to break, carrying on, most likely, a rough flirtation ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... keep up his assumed relationship. As she entered the room with Miss Mix, Jack advanced and soberly saluted her on the cheek. But so positive and apparent was the gallantry of his presence, and perhaps so suggestive of some pastoral flirtation, that Miss Mix, to Jack's surprise, winced perceptibly and became stony. But he was still more surprised that the young lady herself shrank half uneasily from his lips, and uttered a slight exclamation. It was a ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said Dr. Sibthorpe to his wife, "is all that a woman needs, who so evidently is intended for wife and mother as our little Lillie." Dr. Sibthorpe, in fact, had amused himself with a semi-paternal flirtation with his pupil during the whole course of her school exercises, and parted from her with tears in his eyes, greatly to her amusement; for Lillie, after all, estimated his devotion at just about what it was worth. It amused her to see him make a ...
— Pink and White Tyranny - A Society Novel • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... a flirtation of a particular shade. They did not love, they pleased, each other. To be at each other's side sufficed them. Why hasten the conclusion? The novels of those days carried lovers and engaged couples to that kind ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... of no better remedy for demoralized nerves than a flirtation with a resourceful California girl, and if Dick annexed a living companion for his trying journey to England ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... the satire, from her elegant little hands to the teacher's well-combed locks. It is very plain that she does not want to study music with any sincerity, and he does not desire to develop the ability of this particular person. There may be a flirtation in the background. Yet these people are not hollow as gourds, and they are not caricatured. The Dutch Little Masters have indulged in numberless characterizations of mundane humanity. But they are never so preoccupied with the story that it is an anecdote rather than ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... in it. Gilbert and Sullivan, in very far-off days, used to be concerned in these amateur theatricals. Their names were not associated then, but Kate and I established a prophetic link by carrying on a mild flirtation, I with Arthur Sullivan, ...
— The Story of My Life - Recollections and Reflections • Ellen Terry
... since with the Turk obesity is the chief element of comeliness. As the carriages passed along in review, every now and then an occupant, unable or unwilling to repress her natural promptings, would indulge in a mild flirtation, making overtures by casting demure side-glances, throwing us coquettish kisses, or waving strings of amber beads with significant gestures, seeming to say: "Why don't you follow?" But this we could not do if we would, for the Esplanade throughout its entire length was lined with soldiers, ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 6 • P. H. Sheridan
... no need to disguise the fact, since we have it in cold print, that the acquaintance of the couple, begun at Naples in 1794 as a flirtation, developed rapidly, on the lady's side, into a love affair which was only ended by her death. In 1794, when it all began, Lady Bessborough was thirty-two, had been married for fourteen years, and had four children. Granville Gower was twenty, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... and friendship with one another, and we know that the best of both sexes are those who prefer the society of their own as opposed to "quite the lady's man" and "quite the gentleman's woman." It also adds an important item to social decorum by abolishing e.g. such indecencies as the "ball-room flirtation"—a word which must be borrowed from us, not translated by foreigners. And especially it gives to religious meetings, a tone which the presence of women modifies and not for the better. Perhaps, the best form is that semiseclusion of the sex, which prevailed in the heroic ages of Greece, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... seems by no means so complete. To London Bridge, seven years ago, I took a simple child of twelve: to-day I bring back a young lady of nineteen—a woman, in point of fact—who, I have no doubt, understands more of flirtation than she does of French, and would rather graduate ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... the other hand, may be innocent,—that is to say, when they are extremely young. Of course they outgrow it when they arrive at years of flirtation; but up to—say—their tenth or eleventh year, they rarely go in for muddy boots and inappropriate peanuts,—at least not to the same extent as boys. The average little girl is, moreover, seldom found at the CIRCUS. She prefers WALLACK'S, or BOOTH'S theatre,—whereas ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... made a worse mistake just before his departure from the railroad settlement. He had spent two nights at a little wooden hotel, which was not the one where Winston put up when he drove into the place, and to pass the time commenced a flirtation with the proprietor's daughter. The girl was pretty, and Courthorne a man of different type from the wheat-growers she had been used to. When his horse was at the door, he strolled into the saloon where he found the girl alone ...
— Winston of the Prairie • Harold Bindloss
... he knew pass the door on her way to the ball-room, he asked her to come and sit with him. He did so remembering the tentative steps they had taken in flirtation three years ago. So by ...
— Mike Fletcher - A Novel • George (George Augustus) Moore
... you will find Charlie Christian looking timidly down into the gorgeous orbs of Otaheitan Sally as they hold sweet converse of things past, present, and to come. They have been so trained in ways of righteousness, that the omission of the world-to-come from their love-making, (not flirtation, observe), would be as ridiculous as the absence of reference to ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... section, so that once therein, few of the sheep strayed back, and the jiggling wail of the violin was succeeded by a shrill babble of tongues and the clatter of cups and spoons. "Get me an ice, please—strawberry," she ordered John during one of these forced intervals in manual flirtation; and when he had steered laboriously to and fro, he found a young actor beside her their hands dispart. He stood over them with a sickly smile, while Winifred ate her ice. When he returned from depositing the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... likely to be spilled than mingled. Whether she was only withheld from attempting a reconciliation herself through lack of tact and opportunity remains to be seen. For the present she encouraged Masters's attentions under a new and vague idea that a flirtation which distracted Cressy from her studies was displeasing to McKinstry and inimical to his plans. Blindly ignorant of Mr. Ford's possible relations to her daughter, and suspecting nothing, she felt towards him only a dull aversion as being the senseless ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... all heavily veiled, their faces jealously hidden from the eyes of men, except when some giddy girl with a taste for flirtation allowed her veil to slip down as if by accident, and one then, as a general thing, ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... lose sight of the handsome face which had haunted him all the previous summer, notwithstanding his flirtation with the Italian girls in Venice. Venice, beautiful Venice! It was in thy classic city, close to the scene of the great Italian poet's labours and triumphs, that poor Jack Vincent (who used to play left wing in the Swifts) was found drowned, ...
— Scottish Football Reminiscences and Sketches • David Drummond Bone
... morrow's bridegroom had a careless quip for all and sundry on that last night. It was evident that his fiancee's defection was a matter of no moment to him. Stella was to have her fling, and he, it seemed, meant to have his. He and Mrs. Ermsted had had many a flirtation in the days that were past and it was well known that Captain Ermsted heartily detested him in consequence. Some even hinted that matters had at one time approached very near to a climax, but Ralph Dacre knew how to handle difficult ...
— The Lamp in the Desert • Ethel M. Dell
... over-wrought picture. Christine was no fool, Linburne no villain. There was probably a little flirtation, and a good deal of gossip. But that would all be put a stop to by the announcement of Christine's engagement to Hickson. He did not even feel annoyed at his cousin's suggestion that he did not know his way about the world. He ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller
... had seen her master drive off that morning she felt as if she must call out to him, "Stop! Don't go!" But she had held her tongue; what business was it of hers? If he were such a fool, well, it would be his own fault. Then her flirtation with Jendrek had made her entirely forget her master, until it all occurred to her again when she saw her ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig
... for the gentle maid in the very scantiest of tunics, as becomes the fair proportions of the stage girl-boy. You have seen the respectable old Martha faint at the news of her husband's death, and forthwith engage in a desperate flirtation with the gentleman who brings the news. You have seen the gallant Valentin lead off the march of that band of stalwart warriors, who seem to have somehow lost the correct step in their weary campaigns. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... figures in The Daily Scratch, people say, "Why, he looks a mere child! But then these Press photographs always do distort one so." Yet in this instance people are unjust. Clayton-Vane, after a four years' flirtation with death, has the face and figure of a careless chubby schoolboy. When he is in uniform this youthfulness only adds lustre to his ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 19, 1919 • Various
... lady of the drinking-glasses; the Mrs. Mac of many a toast among the poet's acquaintances. She was, in those days, young and beautiful, and we fear a little giddy, since she indulged in that sentimental and platonic flirtation with the poet, contained in the well-known letters to Clarinda. The letters, after the poet's death, appeared in print without her permission: she obtained an injunction against the publication, which still remains in force, but her anger seems to have been less a matter of taste than ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... She was of a loving and trusting and at the same time a coquettish nature, and she attracted young Walton's eye while out for a walk with a "Miss Brown" order of duenna. The duenna saw the little embryo flirtation, and became very much horrified, and preached the girl a long sermon, and set a ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... return from London, her desire to do so had become almost a determination. Hubert showed no disinclination, and after breakfast they were to be seen together in the gardens. Hubert was a great catch, and there were other young ladies eager to be agreeable to him; but he did not seem to desire flirtation with any. So they came to speak of him as a very clever man, no doubt; but as they knew nothing about plays, he very probably did not care to talk to them. Hubert was not attractive in general society, and he would soon have failed to interest them at all had it not been for ...
— Vain Fortune • George Moore
... loud ironical laugh, a laugh which froze the blood of all the seventeen-year-old pupils who were not without fear or reproach upon the subject of clandestine glances, little notes, or girlish carryings-on in the flirtation line. ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Betsey, who always pretended to have something to tell him "about Jule," and who yet, for the pure love of mischief-making, tried to make him think as poorly as possible of Julia's sincerity, and who, from pure love of flirtation, puckered her red lips, and flashed at him with her sensuous eyes, and sighed and blushed, or rather flushed, while she sympathized with him in a way that might have been perilous if he had been an American instead of a constant-hearted ...
— The End Of The World - A Love Story • Edward Eggleston
... Paris, in the pretty park of La Marche, between St. Cloud and St. Germain. It is quite a private gathering, and as elegant as a dashing turnout of some fifteen or twenty four-in-hands and a pretty luncheon and charming flirtation can make it, and if dancing has not yet been introduced it soon will be. Prizes in the shape of groups in bronze and paintings and valuable weapons are awarded to the gentlemen present who may take part in the hunting ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, October, 1880 • Various
... a foolish flirtation—just the snatching at something to fill his empty days. Everard Barett's heart had been his wife's all along. He knew it for a certainty, looking at the woman and her child together, kneeling before them, with a sudden conviction of his own ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann
... ladies make a practice of "receiving" in their palcos; and in the entrance-hall, after the performance is over, an hour may be spent, while ostensibly waiting for carriages, in conversation, gossip, mild flirtation, and generally making one's self agreeable among the groups all engaged in the same amusement. Almost everyone, also, whatever his means may be, has an abono at one or other of the numerous theatres, ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... The idea amused him, and he remembered that while Evelyn's romantic eyes and gold hair were sufficient to win his regard, he had availed himself of a dozen devices to tempt her. Suddenly his face grew grave, and he asked himself how this flirtation was to end. As a sufficient excuse for seeing her he was taking music lessons; he wrote to her every other day and often sent her books and music. They had met in London.... He had been observed walking with her, and at Lady Ascott's lunch the conversation had suddenly ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... as if that were possible! The ocean in a tea-cup? Let me see,—you had a flirtation with Helen that summer, didn't you? Well, she spent the next winter at the Fort with the Purcells. It was odd to miss both her and Mrs. Laudersdale from society at once. Mrs. Laudersdale was ill; ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... very kind, chaperones, took with them on this trip a party of Indians, including "Spotted Tail," with whose daughter Custer carried on, we are told, a mild flirtation on the march. A great deal of amusement was derived from the trip, as well ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... of his social environment. But to apply this incontestable truth with advantage it is necessary to get rid of the old, metaphysical method of thought which considers things one after the other, and independently one of the other. Now Bakounine, like his master, Proudhon, in spite of his flirtation with the Hegelian philosophy, all his life remained a metaphysician. He does not understand that the environment which makes man may change, thus changing man its own product. The environment he has in his mind's eye when speaking of the political action of the proletariat, is the ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff
... shook her head and gave a meaning smile. Her friendship with the signorino had begun when he was a lad and she a charming married woman; like many another friendship, it had begun with a flirtation, and perhaps (who knows?) she thought the ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... cribbed, and confined creature in the world! I have been fighting my way up for the last four years, and have not allowed myself the liberty of one flirtation;—not often even the recreation of a natural laugh. And now I shouldn't wonder if I don't find myself falling back a year or two, just because I have allowed you to come and see me on a Sunday morning. ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... low table is placed the tea equipage, and tea in beautiful little cups is being dispensed by fair hands. This is a very pleasant time in many houses, and particularly favorable to fun and flirtation. In houses where there are children, the cousins of the house and others very intimate adjourn to the school-room, where, when the party is further reinforced by three or four boys home for the holidays, a scene of fun and frolic, which it requires all the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... families saw all, smiled a little, and teased a good deal; but no one interfered. My mother said it gave me occupation and amusement, and helped me to pass the long summer evenings, which I thought charming, and every one else thought a bore. It was called a childish flirtation, and when he went back to the Academy, and I to school, the thing dropped out of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... bow, and turned his face away from the group in the stern. Patricia leaned back amidst her cushions, and opened a book; Darkeih, upon the other side of the rudder, held a whispered flirtation with Regulus, squatting at her feet, the tiller in his hand. There was but little wind, but what there was came from the land, and the Bluebird moved steadily though listlessly down the inlet, between the velvet ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... was flirting with this, that, or the other man—and the curious thing is that, while she was thus utterly careless, people never did accuse her of flirting. But now she felt in her own heart that she was conscious of some emotion far more deep and serious than a wish for a flirtation; she found that she was in love—in love—in love, and with a man who did not seem to have the faintest thought of being in love with her. She felt, therefore, as if she had to go through this part of her life masked, and also armoured. Every eye that turned on her ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... "I have no flirtation with Lord Hartledon, Lady Kirton; or he with me. When I was a child, and he a great boy, years older, he loved me and petted me as a little sister: I think he does the ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... May must dislike and despise the widow as much as she did; and since the whole town was unluckily aware of Henry's intentions, any interference with them was base and malicious, if in the way of mere amusement and flirtation. She was resolved to see what the game was, but only did see that her presence ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his graceful and not too obsequious attentions, and proud of his success in his art. Living upon the pleasures of the day, without a thought of the future, she had never seriously reflected upon the consequences of her flirtation, supposing that, as in every former case, there would come a time of ennui and coolness. Besides, she had felt the force of her prudent sister-in-law's suggestion, that a man without an estate would never be able to supply ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various
... weakness in the nape of the neck, and an irresistible tendency to retire for a brief season within herself. A little farther off still, having taken fortune at the flood and secured De Forest at last, Bell Masters was embarked on another kind of craft, a thorough-going, fully-freighted flirtation, all sails set; and through the trees were glimpses of lazily moving figures beyond, generally in twos and twos, following some occult rule of common division peculiar to picnics. By degrees the children wandered off up the bank, ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... was crowded into that brief period. The fine exhilaration of the start,—the breeze gradually increasing to a gale; then horrible sea-sickness, home-sickness, love-sickness; after which, the weather which sailors love, games, gayety, and flirtation. There is no such social freedom to be enjoyed anywhere as on board an ocean steamer. The breaking-up of old associations, the opening of a fresh existence, the necessity of new relationships,—this fuses the crust of conventionality, quickens the springs of life, and renders character sympathetic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various
... hardly begun with the comedy before we are introduced to this paragon, who enters just after Lady Easy and the maid, Edging, have discovered fresh proofs of his flirtation with Lady Graveairs. Charles is inclined to be philosophical in a blase, tired way, and he says: "How like children do we judge of happiness! When I was stinted in my fortune almost everything was a pleasure to me, because most things then being out of my reach, I ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... you, dear," she spoke confidently, although a shadow of pain flitted across her face. Then he began to tell of a hotel flirtation—a young woman he had met one night in Philadelphia. She wasn't so very pretty, but—her husband had treated her like the devil and—she was very unhappy and—they had rather ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... his head like a toy in a window. People tried to get past him in all the ways people try to get through life, in the ways that Saint Peter must grow very tired of at the gate of heaven—bluff, whine, bribery, intimidation, flirtation. ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... girl was driven to run about the splendid convent gardens; she hurried from tree to tree, she rushed into the darkest nooks—seeking? What? She did not know, but she fell a prey to the demon; she carried on a flirtation with the trees, she appealed to them in unspoken words. Sometimes, in the evening, she stole along under the walls, like a snake, without any shawl over her bare shoulders. Often in chapel, during the service, she remained with her eyes fixed on the Crucifix, melted to tears; the others ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... in the best style of women's-magazine art, whereby the salad was served in hollowed apples, and everything but the invincible fried chicken resembled something else. Ordinarily the men found it hard to talk to the women; flirtation was an art unknown on Floral Heights, and the realms of offices and of kitchens had no alliances. But under the inspiration of the cocktails, conversation was violent. Each of the men still had a number of important things to say about prohibition, ...
— Babbitt • Sinclair Lewis
... renewed the proposal which he had made ere she was yet known to him—and yet, far from seeking an opportunity to be introduced to her, he had even left the party abruptly, in order to avoid the necessary intercourse which must there have taken place between them. His lordship's flirtation with Lady Binks had not escaped the attention of the sagacious Mowbray—her ladyship also had been in a hurry to leave Shaws-Castle; and Mowbray promised to himself to discover the nature of this connexion through Mrs. Gingham, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... woke up little Sally, and these three women rose. I leave you to imagine what a row there was in the establishment if Sally appeared with flowers under her bonnet, gave signs of levity or insubordination, prolonged her absence when sent forth for the beer, or was discovered in flirtation with the baker's boy or the grocer's young man. Sally was frequently renewed. Miss Honeyman called all her young persons Sally; and a great number of Sallies were consumed in her house. The qualities of the Sally for the ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... lighter blue one sees on Chinese ware: not a poetic comparison, but so I thought of them. She was apparently not sophisticated, as were most of the young women at home whom I knew intimately (as were the Watling twins, for example, with one of whom, Frances, I had had, by the way, rather a lively flirtation the spring before); she seemed refreshingly ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... editorial shade — Sir Charles Grandison was "published" by the "editor of Pamela and Clarissa" — enjoying the sunshine of his authorship. His introduction to Pamela and the care he took with it suggest more succinctly than anything else Richardson's flirtation with his adorers, which is not at all unlike that of ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... ever had the least influence over him. The flirtation seems to have died a natural death. I confess, I hoped it might end in that way, and I am glad if it has. And I am very glad that Orsino is succeeding so well. Do you know, dear? I am glad, because you did not believe ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... a plaintively persuading voice that argued on the side of old truth; he would even allow himself to be converted for the moment by a reproachful look from indignant blue eyes. It gave a flavour to a languid flirtation and "after all," he was wont to say, "what religion can be better than that whose ministers are ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... Well,—three or nine,—Mary Damer is one of them. She never saw fear or jealousy, or knowingly allowed an ignoble thought or an ungentle word or an ungraceful act in herself. Her atmosphere does not tolerate flirtation. You must find out for yourself how much genius she has and has not. But I will say this,—that I think of puns two a minute faster when I'm with her. Therefore she must be magnetic, and that is the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... at first hand about Rangoon is not likely to be missed. The tale itself is a good-humoured little comedy of European and native intrigue, showing how one section of the populace strove as usual to ease the white man's burden by flirtation and gossip, and the other to get the best for themselves by unlimited roguery and chicane. The whole thing culminates in a trial scene which is at once a delightful entertainment and (I should suppose) a shrewdly observed study ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 15, 1920 • Various
... then; but if so, I have committed that sin most unconsciously, and, I believe, for the first time in my life. I have had but one lover, and I accepted him, the very moment that he spoke to me. I can, at any rate, have but little flirtation to answer for." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... named a cemetery on the immediate outskirts as the rendezvous—a choice on whose evil omen Shelby wasted no thought. In the heyday of their flirtation he and Mrs. Hilliard had made frequent use of it as a Platonic trysting-place, and he climbed the silent paths toward the summit of the mount, as it was styled in that level land, with no sentiment save approval of her wisdom in seizing ...
— The Henchman • Mark Lee Luther
... dinner turned upon family topics, to which I was a stranger. There was, however, a great deal of rallying of Master Simon about some gay widow with whom he was accused of having a flirtation. This attack was commenced by the ladies, but it was continued throughout the dinner by the fat-headed old gentleman next the parson with the persevering assiduity of a slow hound, being one of those long-winded jokers who, though rather dull at starting game, are unrivalled ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... of Hamlet has introduced a novelty into the tragedy by inventing fresh business. Unauthorised by the text, he has included Ophelia amongst the Court "attendants," and, finding her on the stage, has indulged in a dignified flirtation (in dumb show), worthy of the hero of L'Enfant Prodigue himself. Now I think this a great improvement, and were the masterpiece to be "written up" throughout on the same lines, I am sure the representation ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 102, February 6, 1892 • Various
... there must be no unworthiness connected with it; "no inner baseness we would hide;" no marrying for the sake of being married, for the dignity and position, or the worldly advantages it may bring; and there must be no matchmaking or flirtation that a woman need be ashamed of afterwards. "Let the wife see that she reverence her husband," says St. Paul, and the husband must be able to reverence her. And there must be no selfishness, no getting entangled in engagements that must bring trouble on others; to marry for money ...
— Stray Thoughts for Girls • Lucy H. M. Soulsby
... length, a mutual indifference. However, after having braved the affair out for a few days, the young lady returned amongst her friends, who had the sincerity and candour to represent to her the imprudence of her conduct; and this flirtation, which was so innocent in fact, but so injurious in its result, was at once put an end to. I have related this seemingly uninteresting affair, first to shew and admit the folly of which I was guilty, for folly it was, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... sister." What next was set down he had himself partly seen; and, by enquiry at the hospital named, had ascertained the truth of the rest. "The two people in the Incurable Hospital.—The poor incurable girl lying on a water-bed, and the incurable man who has a strange flirtation with her; comes and makes confidences to her; snips and arranges her plants; and rehearses to her the comic songs(!) by writing which he ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... tender restraint that suggested hidden or implied declarations. Marianne had pretended not to understand him. At that time, she loved Guy or thought that she loved him, which amounts to the same thing. She contented herself with smiling at the flirtation ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... underpinning. In this dream the multiple drives home from the balls of either hotel with the young girls in the little victorias which must pass its sojourn; and, being but a vision itself, fore casts the shapes of flirtation which shall night-long gild the visions of their sleep with the flash of military and naval uniforms. Of course the multiple has been at the dance too (with a shadowy heartache for the dances of forty years ago), and knows enough ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... flannel than when she used to carry the like to them herself. Susan had one or two young friends, daughters of farmers in the neighborhood, with whom she was a favorite, though the gayer ones sometimes quizzed her for her religious tendencies, and her lamentable indifference to flirtation. But then she was so good and so good-humored. and so tolerant of other people's tastes. The prattle of these young ladies became now intolerable to Susan, and when she saw them coming to call on her she used to snatch up her bonnet and fly and lock herself up in a closet at the top ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... approval of the reformation started by Mr. Stead, and there were a million people in America who would have backed up the same moral heroism. If my voice were loud enough to be heard from Penobscot to the Rio Grande, I would cry out "Flirtation is damnation." The vast majority of those who make everlasting shipwreck carry that kind of sail. The pirates of death attack that ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... no interest at all in Jack, but he wanted to talk with this dark-eyed violin-playing damsel. Sydney had indulged in a good deal of flirtation in his time, and he had no objection to whiling away an hour in the company of any pretty girl; and yet there was some sort of dignity about this girl's manner which warned him to be a ...
— Name and Fame - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... and artistic matters enabled him to place an unfamiliar quotation or assign a painted tablet to the right artist. One tells how he was able to find a man in a crowd when everyone else had failed. And the last and most amusing is an anecdote of a court lady who tried to inveigle him into a flirtation with her maid by sending the latter, richly dressed and perfumed, to sit very close to him when he was at the temple. Kenko congratulates himself on having been ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley
... never dreamed of any warmer feeling than kindness on the one side and gratitude on the other; and this unconsciousness was her greatest charm, especially to Captain John, who hated coquettes, and shunned the silly girls who wasted time in idle flirtation when they had far better and wholesomer pastimes to enjoy. The handsome sailor was a favorite, being handy at all sorts of fun, and the oldest of the young men at the Point. He was very courteous in his hearty way to every woman he met, from ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... "parish priest;" but it is probable, nevertheless, that time never hung very heavily upon his hands. In addition to the favourite amusements which he enumerates in the Memoir, he was all his days addicted to one which is, perhaps, the most absorbing of all—flirtation. Philandering, and especially philandering of the Platonic and ultra-sentimental order, is almost the one human pastime of which its votaries never seem to tire; and its constant ministrations to human vanity may serve, perhaps, to account for their unwearied absorption in its pursuit. ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... pause to Russia, Bismarck even indulged in a passing flirtation with England. At the close of 1879, Lord Dufferin, then British ambassador at St. Petersburg, was passing through Berlin, and the Chancellor invited him to his estate at Varzin, and informed him that Russian overtures had been made to France through General Obretcheff, "but Chanzy ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... The engagement was a thing taken for granted. It was a novel experience for Marian as well as for Sam, as now for the first time she meant business. It is impossible in cold ink to reproduce the ecstasies of those many hours on Flirtation Walk, during which Sam opened his heart. For the first time in his life he had found a person as deeply interested in military matters as he was, and as much in love with military glory. He told her his whole history, including ...
— Captain Jinks, Hero • Ernest Crosby
... could not "hold." Isabelle, remembering on one occasion the flashing eyes of the Kentuckian, his passionate denunciation of mere commercialism in public life, felt that there might be some defence for poor Tom Darnell,—even in his flirtation with ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)
... let her and his wife abide permanently in Kensington while he himself continued his Eastern career as a grass-widower. Very naturally, the result was all sorts of trouble. This first took the form of a flirtation, only half serious, with an artful young woman of the type with which Mr. KIPLING has made us familiar. Unfortunately poor Bassett escapes from this emotional frying-pan only to plunge into the fire of a much more scorching attachment. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 14, 1917 • Various
... as usual of late, had turned at once upon Irene, and he had lost no time in giving Aunts Juley and Hester his opinion with regard to this rumour he heard was going about. No—as he said—she might want a bit of flirtation—a pretty woman must have her fling; but more than that he did not believe. Nothing open; she had too much good sense, too much proper appreciation of what was due to her position, and to the family! No sc..., he was going to say 'scandal' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... head to look at her, and Pixie's clear eyes met his in a full frank gaze which held no shadow of embarrassment. Here was something quite new—a girl who could speak about love to a young man without a trace of self-consciousness or flirtation, yet with an earnestness which demonstrated a keen personal interest. Stanor had many girl friends with whom he had often discussed the subject, but invariably a certain amount of self-consciousness had crept in, which had shown itself alternately ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey
... mind as young Baxter concluded, and Eleanor waited a moment before answering. Then she said with a sigh: "Dear Jack, a mild little flirtation never hurt any real case of love, and I've told you many times, that a game of love like this would improve or become fatal, because of such a flirtation. Like anti-toxin—it kills the germs or makes them wild so that no further doubt remains ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... countrymen. Mistress and slave were much together, the master's duties requiring his presence near his prince. Time hung heavily on the lady's hands and, as an ennui antidote, she embarked in a desperate flirtation with the handsome fellow, for Egypt's dark-eyed daughters dearly love to play fast and loose with the hearts of men. Of course it was very wrong; but youth and beauty will not be strictly bound, the opportunity ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... off his hat and stood near the desk, staring at him. Nearer the Marshal stood Mose, with his hat on. The Marshal motioned for Mose to take off his hat and the stammerer made similar motions at the Marshal, as if answering a flirtation. The Marshal made a sign to Foster, who, while Mose was looking in another direction, advanced and took off his hat. Mose wheeled about, snatched his hat, and, recognizing Foster, shook hands with him. Then he shook hands with the Marshal, turned ...
— The Starbucks • Opie Percival Read
... always know me, and so on. He was acting in a very silly manner—quite too silly for a man of his years and a colonel of a regiment, and he was keeping me from some very nice dances, too, so I decided to lead him a dance, and commenced a rare flirtation in cozy corners and out-of-the-way places. I must admit, though, that all the pleasure I derived from it was when I heard the smothered giggles of those who saw us. The colonel was in a domino and had ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... first, that she was much interested in Mr. Henry Burrage, and second, that her nature was extraordinarily beautiful. Could anything, in effect, be less underhand than such an indifference to what she supposed to be the best opportunities for carrying on a flirtation? Verena wanted to know the truth, and it was clear that by this time she believed Olive Chancellor to have it, for the most part, in her keeping. Her insistence, therefore, proved, above all, that she cared more for her friend's opinion ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James
... Castle again. She had succeeded in convincing her husband of the harmless nature of her flirtation with Adrien, and patiently bore the brunt of his very natural resentment at the publicity accorded to his name at the trial; though he acknowledged that under the circumstances she could have done nothing else but come forward to exonerate Leroy. Then her ladyship ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice
... to O'Dell, she played up and kept them all amused, but she never so much as looked at Larry. Thoroughly annoyed, he devoted himself conspicuously to Mrs. Darlington and Miss Devoe. But he might have been in China for all the impression his flirtation made on Isabelle. They landed late in the afternoon, with the Bryce-O'Leary feud ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... that. I may confess to you the real state of matters. She was devilishly struck with me the first time we rehearsed together. We soon got up a little flirtation; but the other night when I played Mirabel to her, it finished the affair. She was quite nervous, and could scarcely go through with her part. I saw it, and upon my soul I am sorry for it; she's a prodigiously fine girl—such lips and such teeth! ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 2 • Charles James Lever
... their futures, and conducted themselves piously for a week. That is to say, Lew started a flirtation with the Colour-Sergeant's daughter, aged thirteen—'not,' as he explained to Jakin, 'with any intention o' matrimony, but by way o' keepin' my 'and in.' And the black-haired Cris Delighan enjoyed that flirtation more than previous ones, and the other drummer-boys ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... because Peter had fallen into one of his reasoning moods, he asked himself whether it was fair to carry the flirtation any further with the girl snuggled beside him. He knew that the hearts of Oriental girls open somewhat more widely to the touch of affection than their Western sisters. And it was not in the nature of women of the East to indulge extensively in the Western form ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... society ever detract, Or lend a brush when a friend is blacked, - At least as a mere malicious act, - But only talk scandal for fear some fool Should think they were bred at CHARITY school. Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation, Which even the most Don Juanish rake Would surely object to undertake At the same high pitch as an altercation. It's not for me, of course, to judge How much a deaf lady ought to begrudge; But half-a-guinea ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley
... his life had he heard a voice so gentle, so tender, so appealing in its sincerity. All desire to flirt, to match wit against a charming girl vanished. He felt a resistless impulse to protect her from any fool who would dare try to start a flirtation. She was too straightforward, too earnest, too sincere. She seemed a part of his own inmost thought ...
— The Man in Gray • Thomas Dixon
... sounds that instantly die away—if you wanted staccato, it was to be had by a proper management of the bow, and you might also have notes as long as you please. The Viol da Gamba is the only instrument, and Abel the prince of musicians! This, and occasionally a little flirtation with the Fiddle, continued some years; when, as ill-luck would have it, he heard Crosdill, but by some irregularity of conduct he neither took up nor bought the Violoncello. All his passion for the Bass was vented in descriptions ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... with the exasperating tactfulness of a woman checking a flirtation; a smile like an airy pat on the arm. She sighed, "You're a dear to let me tell you my imaginary troubles." She bounced up, and trilled, "Shall we take the ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... and though changeful and gay in apparel never cheap nor meretricious. A slim-shafted palm shooting through the leafy mantle, and swaying airily a profuse mass of fiery red seeds, distinctive in shape, may be the prototype of a flirt, but the flirtation which arrests attention and bewitches the beholder is also innoxious. There is nothing of the artificial about the display. The colours flaunted are true, perfect and pure, however cunningly, however boldly by their means admiration is challenged. The true lover ...
— The Confessions of a Beachcomber • E J Banfield
... sweet-scented country lanes now. The whole scene fitted romance. The cadet remembered Flirtation Walk, at West Point, and it struck him that there was danger, at the ...
— Dick Prescott's Third Year at West Point - Standing Firm for Flag and Honor • H. Irving Hancock
... had watched for the postman and hunted through her mail with frenzy. There was a vast amount of mail, for it is one of the hardships of the movie business that the actors are fairly showered with letters of praise, criticism, query, and flirtation. ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... there was, and always put herself where he could see her. She waited with trembling for her to give the affair sanction by making her aunt ask him to something at her house. On the other hand, she could not help feeling that Bessie's flirtation was all the more deplorable for the want of some ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... Philip, flying from his creditors and playing the part of a needy Don Juan amid the picturesque dilapidations of the Abbey, was gravelled day after day for lack of occupation—it was these surroundings that had made the flirtation possible. Well, she was a handsome daredevil little minx. It amused him to make love to her, and in spite of his parsonical cousin, he should continue to do so. And that the proceeding annoyed Richard Meynell made it not less, but more, enticing. ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... questioning his secret heart. The fact was, the Countess had made a very strong impression on him from the first. He had admired her greatly during the past winter at Rome, but then it was only a passing fancy, as he thought,—the pleasant platonic flirtation of a middle-aged man, who never expected to inspire or feel a great love. Only now, when he had shared a serious trouble with her, had passed through common difficulties and dangers, he was finding what accident may do—how it may fan a first liking into a stronger flame. ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... am wrong, very wrong to have listened to you so long. I reproached myself enough, but he has unfortunately discovered our flirtation." ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... young man deserted his wife and three children and eloped with an eighteen-year-old girl who had made his acquaintance in a street car flirtation. He had been "an obedient boy with good principles," and his later record showed steadiness and ability; but he and his wife had been drifting apart—their marital relations had not been "quite the same" as formerly. Arrested and brought back, he did not ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... was flirting shamelessly with a young doctor. Perhaps Jimmy should have reflected that men were being killed rapidly these days, and it was necessary that some should concern themselves with supplying the future generations; but Jimmie was in no mood to probe the philosophy of flirtation—he remembered the Honourable Beatrice Clendenning, and wished he was back in Merrie England. Also he remembered his pacifist principles, and wished he had kept out ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... the patience of these girls. How bored they must have been with all this flirtation, which led to nothing except, perhaps, the purchase of a bit of soap at twice its proper price! They knew that these boys would leave to go back to the trenches in a few hours and that some of them would certainly be dead in a few days. There could ...
— Now It Can Be Told • Philip Gibbs
... fact, as she would have discussed her sisters with Mrs. Best. She was glad that at the moment the sound of the piano set them listening. She did not feel bound to mention to "sister" any more than she would to the head mistress, that when staying at Mr. Waring's country house a sort of semi-flirtation had begun with Hubert Delrio, a young man to whose education his father had sacrificed a great deal, and who was a well-informed and intelligent gentleman in all his ways. He had engaged himself to the great firm of Eccles and Beamster, ecclesiastical decorators, and might be employed ...
— Modern Broods • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... women are kept in strict seclusion. One never sees a native woman except heavily veiled under her chudder, much less can a European talk to her. The laws of Persia are so severe that anything in the shape of a flirtation with a Persian lady may cost the life of Juliet or Romeo, or both, and if life is spared, blackmail is ever after levied by the police or by the ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... meant more than friendship by the constant exchange of letters with him. It might be eccentric; it might be looked upon as utterly and unpardonably unconventional, but it could never be regarded as a flirtation by letter. The proof of that, Veronica argued to herself, was that both of them knew that it was nothing of the sort, a manner of begging the question familiar to those who wish to do as they please without hindrance from within ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... intimacies with which her married life had been enriched. She found it necessary to her enjoyment that some man should be her devoted admirer, always quite outside the bounds of any possible love-making, albeit often enough she permitted matters to go to the exciting verge of a flirtation which might merit a name somewhat warmer than friendship. She was a brilliant and clever woman who allowed herself the luxury of gratifying her vanity by encouraging the ardent attentions of some man, which, if they ever became too pressing, she knew how to check, or, ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... thought, "this is how much she cares! On the very day of our final rupture she starts a flirtation with ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... charmed without knowing it. Let us do her full justice. She had not the remotest idea of opening a flirtation with Sir Lionel Bertram. She had looked on him as the future father-in-law of her own dear child; never as anything more: no idea of becoming Lady Bertram had ever for an instant flashed upon her imagination. ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... going to be a fine turmoil if you run to Teddy with an account of every little mild flirtation you happen to have. Of all the imbeciles, the most imbecile ...
— The Great God Success • John Graham (David Graham Phillips)
... was in them, they were trained by the same precocious successes, only six years apart in age, and beginning with that hearty mutual aversion which is so often the parent of love, in impulsive natures like theirs. Their flirtation was platonic, but chronic; and whenever poor, heroic, desolate Clemence de Maille was sicker than usual, these cousins were walking side by side in the Tuileries gardens, and dreaming, almost in silence, of what might be, while Mazarin shuddered at the thought of mating ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various
... (mistress) of the kingdom!" The marechale replied: "Do not force me to count even unto three" (Mme. de Pompadour, Mlle. Marquise, Mme. de Boufflers). In those days, the position of mistress of an important man attracted little more attention than might a petty, trivial, light-hearted flirtation nowadays. ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... with a still firmer conviction that I had chosen wisely. The calm unselfish wisdom and steadfastness of Mr. Spence seemed more indisputable to me than ever; and in the way of companionship, Paul Barr's gallantries and sallies were vastly preferable to any drawing-room flirtation. ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant |
