"Nonchalant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The nonchalant "What do I know?"—"What does any one know?"—of this shrewd pagan spirit has nothing in it of the ache of pessimistic disillusion. It has never had any illusions. It has taken things as they appear, and ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... upon Joe alone. She nudged her companion and tittered. But she had another person to deal with. Hattie Sterling stared at her coldly and indifferently, and passed on by her to a seat. Joe proceeded to order supper and other things in the nonchalant way that the woman had enjoined upon him. Minty began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, but it was her business not to be beaten. She laughed outright. Hattie did not seem to hear her. She was beckoning Sadness to her side. He ...
— The Sport of the Gods • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... hair as well as his moustache were salt grey. He was remarkably handsome. As he passed near the inn, he hesitated, as if asking himself whether or no he should enter it; gave a glance towards us, took a few whiffs at his pipe, and then resumed his walk at the same nonchalant pace. ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... Nonchalant yet watchful, indolent and yet alert, gracefully graceless, he watched me smilingly out of half-closed eyes; and then quietly fired the shot ...
— A Daughter of Raasay - A Tale of the '45 • William MacLeod Raine
... whole. Pulse is poor. That's the worst sign." She picked up the hand lying outside the coverlet and put her finger-tips to the wrist, doing it with the easy nonchalant carelessness with which she might have seized an inanimate object, yet knowing exactly what she was about. "H'm! Fifty-six! That's pretty low. If we could get it above sixty—but still!" Dropping ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... hard-boiled eggs, would be just the wife for a practical man like him. She would invest his home with an artistic flavor which he himself would be capable of appreciating, though powerless to supply. And yet Roeschen, with her beautiful verses, her nonchalant toilets and her poetic sympathy for improprieties which, in practice, she was careful to shun, might be even more fitted than her sister to lift and ennoble a sordid American soul. It only remained to be considered ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 10 • Various
... until he was actually in the room, his cold appraising eyes upon her, that the poor woman realized that her position towards him had changed. She could not summon up the nonchalant distant civility which, according to her ideas, was sufficient for her country neighbors in general, and the Pratts ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... the Senator and begged him to introduce me to some of the young ladies. He hesitated a moment, and then consented, and I was led up to and presented to a magnificent creature I had long looked upon with silent admiration. Miss Gennie Williams, who was seated in an easy, nonchalant manner, conversing with a circle of gentlemen, and favored me with a gracious nod. As I stood wondering whether this was the end of my introduction, a mustached dandy came between us and said, "Miss Williams, permit ...
— A Portrait of Old George Town • Grace Dunlop Ecker
... "Nonchalant," said Mrs. Sandford, half laughing. "Daisy does not care about all these things. Why should she? To see and to conquer are the same thing with her, whatever becomes of your Southern and Northern camps ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... was finished, which I uttered in an easy and nonchalant tone of voice, as if reciting something that everybody knew, his lordship stood on his feet again, staring at me like a man thunderstruck. This gave me the opportunity of exercising that politeness which his abrupt entrance and demeanour had forestalled. ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... little rounder and plumper since her marriage. Then to his great surprise he made out, further in at the back of the room, chatting with Capitan Basilio, the curate, and the alferez of the Civil Guard, no less than the jeweler Simoun, as ever with his blue goggles and his nonchalant air. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... and I found that the nonchalant and care-free attitude of the average British officer was really a mask and simulated to keep his mind off the whole beastly business: this great big dirty job ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... subject, as historical elements in the history of the human mind, the booksellers of London, Paris, Leipsic, and Frankfort-on-the-Main, to whose notice the subject was brought, exhibited very nearly the same nonchalant tone; and had it not been for the attractive poetic form in which one of our most popular and successful bards has clothed some of these wild myths, the period of their reproduction is likely to have been still ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... set!" cried the boxer, lolling in his seat with a nonchalant air; and in a twinkling a bright heap of silver lay in front of each player, the wagers made with the gaffers opposite. The spinner handed his stake of five shillings to the boxer, who cried ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... by General Serano, and wished he had not assumed quite so nonchalant an air, although he felt that he could not have answered the questions which would perhaps involve the safety of Captain Dynamite. They were unquestionably in a disagreeable situation. He realized that if he were to tell the entire ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... hearing of anything seriously amiss that he said to her, as he sat in the little parlour recovering his breath, after walking rather fast, while she cultured the flame of a candle whose wick had been cut off short:—"Everything all right, M'riar?" He was under the impression that he asked in a nonchalant, easy-going manner, and he was quite mistaken. It was only perfectly palpable that he meant it to be so, and he who parades his indifference is ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... iron safe was lying. As it caught Bronson's eye an expression came over his face, which, if Fotheringham had seen, would have saved him a vast amount of trouble. But the messenger, too busy to notice his visitor, paid him no attention, and in a moment Bronson was puffing his cigar with a nonchalant air, that would disarm any suspicions which the messenger might have entertained, but he had none, as it was a common practice to send new men over his run, that he might "break ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... press, the nonchalant, offhand manner with which the sighting was written off by the Air Force public relations officer showed great confidence in the conclusion, Venus, but behind the barbed-wire fence that encircled ATIC the nonchalant ...
— The Report on Unidentified Flying Objects • Edward Ruppelt
... his way quickly to Broadway, and thence to Tiffany's, at that time not so far uptown as at present. He entered the store with a nonchalant air, and, advancing to the counter, accosted the same clerk to whom Paul had shown the ring earlier in ...
— Paul the Peddler - The Fortunes of a Young Street Merchant • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... either rode there or fell to the ground unnoticed. Garrison days were but a merry-go-round with him. "If that's a specimen of the bridegroom cometh," said he to himself, "I've got no more use for matrimony than I have for the catechism." And doubtless to this gay and nonchalant spirit the deeply religious temperament of the Parson seemed a sombre and repellent thing,—a thing to be lamented, yet indulged as something too solemn or sacred ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a dandy, strolling, gipsy band up at the hotel; the dining-room floor is all waxed and I'm asking for the first dance with the young and radiant Mrs. Carter. Get into a glad rag and don't ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... therefore,' he said, endeavoring to assume a nonchalant air of indifference. 'Would you still win it back, Sergius? And the sesteria also? Well, there is that vineyard of yours on the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... If Helen had engaged Mrs. Finn, everything would be all right. She knew them and she would wait. Still, he didn't like putting anybody off—he was neither quite too poor nor quite too affluent to be nonchalant ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... the palace, he became a man of the world, polished, nonchalant, handsome, and mildly curious. Immediately after the usher announced his name, he crossed the chamber and presented his respects to the prelate, who, he reasoned not unwisely, expected him. The friendly greeting of the ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... his opponent, who was sliding slowly forward in his chair, and for the length of a minute no sound but the guarded breathing of the onlookers could be heard. This was broken by a nervous cough from the rear of the room, and the faces assumed their ordinary nonchalant expressions, their rugged lines heavily shadowed in the light of the flickering oil lamps, while the shuffling of cards and the clink of silver became audible. Hopalong Cassidy had objected to insulting remarks about ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... gave the hand she still held a squeeze. "You're adorable, that's what you are!" She exploded this pointblank charge in Sylvia's face with nonchalant ease, and went on with another. "Jerry Fiske is quite right about you. I suppose you know that you're here today so that ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... in front of an open window smoking a cigar. When he saw Carrie he removed it from his mouth and came forward in a somewhat nonchalant way ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... regretted having nothing very substantial to satisfy it with. "Oh, down there in the hall," he said, "after everybody but March and the Frenchman had gone. Aunt Lucile began fussing about you. She was rather up in the air, anyway. She'd done the nonchalant, all right,—overdone it a bit in fact—as long as there was any one around to play up to. But when we had got rid of the Novellis—they were the last—she did a balloon ascension. She had a fit ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... woke he did not utter a sound, did not stir, and did not even open his eyes. He would have been glad not to wake, for, as was evident, he was not greatly in love with life. Nothing interested him, he showed an apathetic and nonchalant attitude to everything, he disdained everything and, even while eating ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... below. Sedately she prepared to leave, walking down the stairs slowly instead of rushing at them as she wished to do. She buttoned her little gloves, and set her hat straight, and made herself appear nonchalant. And that was how it happened that Gaga overtook her at the front door, and stood with her for a ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Army to-day has counted the cost. He is there because he elected to be there. He is going to stay by until the thing is done, or he is. He says very little about it. He is uncomfortable if any one else says anything about it. He is rather matter of fact, indeed, and nonchalant as long as things are being done fairly. But there is nothing calm about his attitude when his opponent hits below the belt. It was a sense of fair play, as well as humanity, that made England rise to the call of Belgium. It is ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... I've known her to go through a fellow's war-bag, in his absence, for tobacco. When she's hungry, which I should judge was all the time, she drops in casually upon a patient and humorously raids the pantry—all with that air of nonchalant good fellowship which shields her from much criticism, since what in reality is miserliness and gluttony passes ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... stretched prone upon the ground, blinking sleepily up at the sun and the cobalt sky, feeling my very hair grow, and health returning in warm, electric waves. I even dared to cross one leg over the other and to swing the pendant member with nonchalant air, first taking a cautious survey of the neighboring back windows to see if any one peeked. Doubtless they did, behind those ruffled curtains, ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... In the nonchalant company of the smarter young bachelors up-stairs he smoked a cigarette. But he sneaked away. He paused at the bend in the stairs. Below him was Gertie, silver-gowned, wonderful. He wanted to go down to her. He would have given up his chance for a motor-car to be able to swagger down like ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... dare say they will last our time," Westray answered in a nonchalant and reassuring tone; for he remembered that, as regards the tower, he had been specially cautioned to let sleeping dogs lie, but he thought of the Ossa heaped on Pelion above their heads, and conceived a ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... his head go down between his knees, and so disgusting the stranger that he turned sharply upon his heel and strutted off, swinging a black cane with a silver top and silk tassels to and fro, and then stopping in a very nonchalant manner to take out a silver hunting watch and look at the time, at the same moment taking care that Will should have a good view of the watch, and ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... black sample-case that spanned his knees he sorted and re-sorted with infinite earnestness a large and varied consignment of "Ladies' Pink and Blue Ribbed Undervests." Surely no other man in the whole southward-bound Canadian train could have been at once so ingenuous and so nonchalant. ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... a whit less manly. But as he shirked no part of the universal hardship, they left him his reticence. He even came to enjoy a sort of remote popularity as one who was conversant with the best—a nonchalant social connoisseur—yet who realized the stern primitive beauties ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... this elegance, this essence of luxury, and this joy of life brought back to my memory the vision of our Bois de Boulogne, so elegant and so animated a few years before, when Napoleon III. used to drive through on his daumont, nonchalant and smiling. Ah, how beautiful it was in those days—our Bois de Boulogne, with the officers caracoling in the Avenue des Acacias, admired by ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... handed to me, and at the same time the sauce-dish was uncomfortably near my neck, and directly under my nose. This was too nonchalant, and my surprise was still greater when the servant, in an unnatural and gruff voice, said, "Do you want any of this stuff?" I looked up at the man, and recognized a twinkle in a familiar eye, and as the twinkle was accentuated by a powerful wink I began ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... of hands and exclamations of pleasure, while those who were seated near Ferrari raised their glasses and drank to his health with congratulations, all of which courtesies he acknowledged by a nonchalant, self-satisfied bow. I glanced at him again—how tranquil he looked!—reclining among the crimson cushions of his chair, a brimming glass of champagne beside him, the cigarette between his lips, and his handsome face slightly upturned, though his ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... we had passed through Chantilly, and on the way to Amiens we sped by forty or fifty ambulances. It was at the Cafe Gobert, in Amiens, that we got out of the automobile and had luncheon. That town was thronged with nonchalant women and blue-clad poilus. Following our refreshment, we continued our journey. We ran into soldiers and guns, aeroplanes, and more guns of all calibres; there must have been two miles of them in one batch that we passed on ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... left him as suddenly as it had come; he was again the cool, shrewd, nonchalant Englishman, as, lighting another cigarette, ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... know you, poplar; I have watched you since I was ten. But if you had a little real love, A little strength, You would leave your nonchalant idle lovers And go walking down the white road Behind ...
— Some Imagist Poets - An Anthology • Richard Aldington
... carriage. It had crossed the railway, and was advancing up the Roman road along by the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but someone waved to him. It was Agnes. She waved continually, as much as to say, "Wait for us." Mrs. Failing herself raised the whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen Wonham was following on foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back into his pocket and waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some hurdles he went down from the embankment and helped them to ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... it all for granted in a delightful, nonchalant way, so that the angry protest which had already started from Charlie's lips stopped in the middle. That fearless ...
— Pieces of Eight • Richard le Gallienne
... than willing, for he seldom received instruction. With now and then a word of counsel or warning from the wise man of the west in the corner, he cautiously assembled two other fizzes, while Mr. Pike, in a most nonchalant and roundabout manner, sought information concerning affairs of state, local politics, the Governor-General's household and Princess Kalora. Popova told more than he had meant to tell and more than he knew that he ...
— The Slim Princess • George Ade
... figure suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with a return of his habitual nonchalant air, and waved ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... as if he had not been away for a day. He looked around him: all were as before, the elder men, with thick moustaches and hair growing thin in places, with the cares of a future command already on the brow; those of his own age, easy-going and assuming nonchalant airs; and the youngest of all very spick and span and extremely correct. Just as of old the three brothers-in-law stood close together (two of them had in the meantime become fathers, and the wife of Keyl II., nee Moeller, was in an ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... elapsed, then Leslie received a second communication too austere to be disregarded. She went to the president's office in considerable trepidation and emerged from it an hour later, her heavy features set in anger. Undertaking to assume her usual nonchalant pose, she had been brought with alarming suddenness to a wholesome respect for Doctor Matthews' dignity. She had also received a lecture on reckless driving which she ...
— Marjorie Dean, College Sophomore • Pauline Lester
... of the Colonel. But no, friendship had never existed between her and the young lady; she was too eccentric and ill-mannered. Just imagine, Jonker, she came to our house one evening when she knew there was to be dancing and music. Yes, she dropped in, as nonchalant as possible, in a dark merino dress, fastened up to the neck, with a turn-down collar and a silk neckerchief—just for all the world like a boy. And her boots—they might have belonged to some plough-boy. Upon my word, I believe there were nails in the ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... machine was an old farm wagon, and in front of that were four horses. On the seat of the wagon sat a nonchalant-looking farmer who seemed to take ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... down on the cane chair which Arthur had found, Leonora's characteristic ease of manner deserted her. She felt conspicuous and embarrassed, and she could neither maintain her usual cold nonchalant glance in examining the room, nor look at Arthur in a natural way. She had the illusion that every one must be staring at her with amazed curiosity. Yet her furtive searching eye could not discover a single person except Arthur who seemed to notice ...
— Leonora • Arnold Bennett
... methods is as great as the difference between painting and sculpture. Indeed the novel-writer's methods have always seemed to me analogous to those employed by the painter, and the dramatist's methods similar to those used by the sculptor. And I have marvelled at the nonchalant way in which the fiction writer often rushes into the writing of a play, when a painter would never think of trying to "sculpt" until he had learned at least some of the very different processes employed in the strange art-form of sculpture. The radical ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... attracted; but she was interested. She saw beyond the ill-fitting frock-coat, and the absurd manner, thoroughly ill at ease, trying to assume easy, nonchalant man-of- the-world airs. "I'd never have thought of judging you except on your own ground," said she, "if ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... a tousled head entered, stared at Elsie in amazement, and went abruptly out. Returning a little later with shining face and wet, parted hair, as he asked at the desk for a book, he spread out a pair of very clean hands in a manner intended to be nonchalant. He was ready and eager to talk and very amusing. Before Elsie got through with him, she had assured him that she meant to read "Robinson Crusoe" ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... called names, and they did not know what might be the consequence. There was a dead silence now; superstitious bodings were in every mind. The magician began to pull his wits together, and when he presently smiled an easy, nonchalant smile, it spread a mighty relief around; for it indicated that his mood was ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a sandwich of cracker and pork and swallowed it in a nonchalant manner. "Oh, I suppose we must go reconnoitering around the country jest to keep 'em from getting too close, or to develop ...
— The Red Badge of Courage - An Episode of the American Civil War • Stephen Crane
... about Nolla's, but leave mine where the man can pick them up readily, to-morrow, when I leave," returned Barbara, in a nonchalant manner. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... Brainard stood beside me. Brainard, I say, and yet in no sense the man I had known,—not a hint in this pale creature, whose breath struggled through chattering teeth, and whose hands worked in uncontrollable spasms, of the nonchalant elegant I had known. Not a glimpse to be seen in those angry and determined eyes of the gayly selfish spirit ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... sometimes," quoth the nonchalant philosopher. It was sharply revealed to David that ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... moment a barge, with her red sails set, stood out of the fog clean across the bows of the Customs boat, which narrowly escaped instant destruction. When they got clear, and the usual interchange of calm, nonchalant swearing was over, the dinghy was barely to be discerned in the mist, and the fat man was breathing in such a manner that his sighs might almost have been heard on the banks. Racksole wanted violently to do something, but there was nothing to do; he could ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... delicate loveliness that seemed to him inexpressibly pathetic, and he thought of all the days that break in beauty, and that set in storm. These rustics, too, with their rough, good-humoured voices, and their nonchalant ways, what a strange London they saw! A London free from the sin of night and the smoke of day, a pallid, ghost-like city, a desolate town of tombs! He wondered what they thought of it, and whether they knew anything of its splendour and its shame, of its fierce, fiery-coloured ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... of the boys, he immediately started to brushing himself off, as though the dust on his clothes bothered him more than any slight bruises he may have received in his ugly fall. Frank made up his mind when he saw this that the other was certainly nonchalant, or, as Frank himself ...
— The Outdoor Chums at Cabin Point - or The Golden Cup Mystery • Quincy Allen
... look, half strode, half sidled towards Mrs. Hilson, and putting his elbow in her face by way of an invitation, led her to the quadrille. The contrast between these two couples, placed opposite to each other, was striking, and yet common enough in a mixed ballroom. Captain Kockney was desperately nonchalant, his partner full of airs and graces; their conversation was silly, ignorant, and conceited, beyond the reach of imagination—such things must be heard to be believed. Young Van Horne was clever, and ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... not sleep well; I slept very badly. To begin with, Maurice Anscombe, generally the most cheerful and nonchalant of mortals with a jest for every woe, was in a most depressed condition, and informed me of it several times, while I was getting ready to turn in. He said he thought the place hateful and felt as if people he could not see were looking at him (I had the same sensation ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... With a nonchalant air which excited Mr. Oppner's admiration, Alden walked to a lamp some little distance away, tore open the yellow envelope, ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... sitting perfectly motionless, even to her fingers and eyelids. The Iron Duke standing at her left, bent, and trembled slightly—supporting with evident difficulty the ponderous sword of State. Prince Albert, sitting tall and soldier- like, in his handsome Field-Marshal's uniform, looked nonchalant and serene, but with a certain far-away expression in his eyes. The Earl of Derby held the crown on its gorgeous-cushion gracefully, like an accomplished waiter presenting a tray of ices. On a like occasion, some time ago, I hear the ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... her, beneath the nonchalant manner I could detect a great uneasiness; and in her dark eyes there was fear. That Harley also had seen the bloodstains I was well aware, and I did not doubt that furthermore he had noted the fact that the only mat which the room boasted ...
— Tales of Chinatown • Sax Rohmer
... right," answered the nonchalant little woman, undoing her jacket. "Shake hands with your grandfather, George. That's right—don't talk too much," she added, with a half-nervous little laugh, as the old man, with a kind of fixed smile, and the ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... pigeons over a dovecot; Tozer, with that wicked whisking little Jones, spins along as merrily as a May-day sweep; Miss Joy is the partner of the happy Fred Sparks; and even Miss Ranville is pleased, for the faultless Captain Grig is toe and heel with her. Beaumoris, with rather a nonchalant air, takes a turn with Miss Trotter, at which Lord Methuseleh's wrinkled chops quiver uneasily. See! how the big Baron de Bobwitz spins lightly, and gravely, and gracefully round; and lo! the Frenchman staggering under the weight of Miss Bunion, who ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... testified to an amount of heterogeneous business. Busy the Consul undoubtedly was, writing and studying; nevertheless, he welcomed his visitor. The young man came in like an inhabitant of another world, as he was; in spotlessly neat attire, leisurely manner, and with his blue eyes sleepily nonchalant at the sight of all the stir of all the world. But they ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... sat near in an open window of the parlor, ostensibly reading a novel, but in reality observant of all that occurred. Both she and Van Berg had been amused by the fact that Stanton, usually so languid and nonchalant, had been for once thoroughly aroused. Between anger at his coachmen, alarm for the child, and interest in its preserver, he was quite shaken out of his wonted equanimity, which was composed equally of indolent good-nature, self-complacency, ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... anything more, but sneaked off by himself to think. The change of the name seemed nothing at the time, but the suggestion that his great-grandfather had been hanged was startling enough to give food for many meditations. Fortunately, or unfortunately, his aunt's manner had been too nonchalant to give him any clues. And from the manner of his mother he gathered merely that the asking of questions would be useless. So it came about that Keith for the first time in his life regretted the premature death of his paternal ...
— The Soul of a Child • Edwin Bjorkman
... it sound nonchalant but he was finding it difficult to bear up under this barrage of disapproving eyes—particularly two very young, ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... type in emotional display, in what is known as poise. This third generation Jewish-American has dropped all the mannerisms of excitability in gesture and voice, and his adherence to good form includes that attitude of nonchalant humor ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... his own world, where a perfectly clear idea of what you want to do combined with a nonchalant manner of "Take it or leave it" had always carried him through the intricacies of business. If he was a fool in supposing that precisely the same armoury would defend him at home, there is this excuse for him, that Lucy had encouraged him to suppose it. When she dashed from the room at this ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett
... seated himself, and was holding little Ned on his knee, his arm at the same time encircling shy, sensitive Johnnie, who was fairly trembling with excited expectancy. Ned, with his thumb in his mouth, regarded his new relative in a nonchalant manner; but to the little girl the home-world was the world, and the arrival in its midst of the beautiful lady never seen before was as wonderful as any fairy tale. Indeed, that such a June-like creature should come to them that wintry day—that ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... brutal to her," said Polly, in a nonchalant tone, flinging up the sash of the bedroom window as she spoke, and indulging ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... the wireless room placed the oak bars across the door, and tried to believe he was nonchalant and unafraid as he laid out extra clips of cartridges. But his eyes persisted in following the sinking sun, and he watched from within his cage the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... stormed, called him "demented Bismarck," "Napoleon worshiper," "hollow braggart," "a country gentleman of moderate political training, inconsistent, nonchalant, insolent to a degree;—pray when did Bismarck ever ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... Standish looked down at the nonchalant invalid. Above, the sounds of women's steps and an occasional snatch of a sentence could be heard. At last, ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... no great and glorious ideas that nothing matters because he is ready to die for his country. He is, of course, ready to die for her. But he does not think about it. He lights a cigarette and tries to be nonchalant, for he knows that his men are watching him, and it is his duty to keep up a front for their sake. Probably, at the same time, they are keeping up a front for him. Then the Sergeant Major comes along, cool and smiling, as if he were out for a stroll at home. Suddenly he is an immense ...
— Life in a Tank • Richard Haigh
... still the landscape stands, How nonchalant the wood, As if the resurrection Were ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... way, reader, have you observed that a person who is exceptionally nonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with persons of a higher rank? Why is that? But such questions lead ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... his journey alone, reaching his apartments a little before midnight. As he stepped out of the car a man strolled across the street. It was Beale's watcher. Van Heerden looked round with a smile, realizing the significance of this nonchalant figure, and passed through the lobby and up ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... Long wagons, loaded with stone from the quarries of the Gorge, jangled by, some of them drawn by mixed teams of eleven horses and mules, on whose necks chimed collars of bells. Chauffeurs sounded the horns of their motors as they slowly crept through the nonchalant crowd of natives, which had gathered in front of the post-office and the Municipal Theater to discuss the affairs of the day. Maltese coachmen, seated on the boxes of large landaus, cracked their whips ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... abandoned all their pretence of nonchalant confidence and did not talk at all. Of course, they knew Florette would come in her own good time, but the stifling atmosphere of that musty hole and the ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... neglected because she did not come—to feel an eager desire to see her and talk the matter of the letter over with her. But he had read it through again twice ere she appeared, and then, to his dismay, equipped for a journey, and saying, in the most matter-of-fact, nonchalant manner possible, "Ross, Mrs. Keller has come to say good-bye. I am going with her to Newport, where she makes the only perilous part of the trip—the, to her, dreadful change from cars to boat. So I shall be away all ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... beautifully-shaded walks can be so called. The city in its development has laid out alleys and boulevards instead of merely making ways, with the result that in spite of brilliant sky and burning sun, coolness and shadow are ever to be had. The Cannebire, with its blue sky, glowing foliage and gay, nonchalant, heterogeneous crowds, reminds me of the Rambla of Barcelona. Indeed, the two cities have many points of resemblance. Marseilles is greatly changed from the Marseilles I visited twenty-five years ago, to say nothing of Arthur Young's description of 1789. The only advantage ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... offspring with a butcher-knife in his boot, a six-shooter at his belt, and a rifle in his hand. Frank himself was less of a buccaneer and was conspicuous because he was practically the only man in Little Missouri who did not carry arms. He was big-hearted and not without charm in his nonchalant disregard of the moralities, but there was no truth in him, and he was so foul-mouthed that he became the model for the youth of Little Missouri, the ideal of what a foul-mouthed ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... normal tilt. She held small Pete by one chubby hand, and with a wry face he was licking out an absurd little red tongue at least twice each moment, as if uncertain as to whether his olfactory or gustatory nerves had been offended. Billy was standing with the nonchalant unconcern of one strong of stomach, and the four other little Poteets, ranging in size from Shoofly, on the floor, to Tobe, the buried, were shuffling their bare feet in the dust with evident impatience to be off to gloat over the prostrated but ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... spot on which the riverman had stood was buried beneath twenty feet of solid green wood. To Thorpe it seemed that Shearer must have been overwhelmed, but the riverman always mysteriously appeared at one side or the other, nonchalant, urging the men to work before the logs should have ceased to move. Tradition claimed that only once in a long woods life had Shearer been forced to "take water" before a breaking rollway: and then he saved his peavey. History stated that he had never lost ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... the Waltz and Galop, the dancers are isolated, and only confused tableaux are offered to the bystanders; while the Quadrille is only a kind of pass at arms made with foils, where attack and defence proceed with equal indifference, where the most nonchalant display of grace is answered with the same nonchalance; while the vivacity of the Polka, charming, we confess, may easily become equivocal; while Fandangos, Tarantulas and Minuets, are merely little love-dramas, only interesting to those who execute them, in which the cavalier has nothing ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... lay across the threshold without a sign of life. The buzz of the roulette-wheel was resumed and the crap- dealer began his monotonous routine. Every eye was fixed on the nonchalant man at the bar, but the unconscious creature outside the threshold lay unheeded, for in these men's code it behooves the most humane to practise a certain aloofness in the matter of ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... Audrey, and her curious friendship with Natalie. Audrey the careless, with her dark lazy charm, her deep and rather husky contralto, her astonishing little French songs, which she sang with nonchalant grace, and her crowds of boyish admirers whom she alternately petted and bullied—surely she and Natalie had little ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... his shoulders. He felt a great weariness concerning the situation, nonchalant scorn of what happened in the future of this woman. As for Mary Faithful—that was a different matter, but he could not think about Mary Faithful while standing in the salon of the Villa Rosa with ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... comfortable, with a keen November wind to emphasise our blessings. The water in the pocket was clear and pure, but it was full of small "wigglers." We tried to dip up a pail which should be free from them. The Major, seeing our efforts, took a cup and without looking drank it down with the nonchalant remark, "I haven't seen any wigglers." The Pai Utes had killed some rabbits, which they now skinned and cooked. I say cooked, but perhaps I should say warmed. Dexterously stripping off the skins they ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... hardly account for it, since she had not written to him of her own initiative. Their parting certainly had been discrepant: the clinging and wistfulness had been hers, though she had uttered nothing of complaint or misgiving. But perhaps he had been too gay and nonchalant, a little too much the husband secure. For a week she had shivered at her loneliness; then she had plunged anew into the flood of affairs, and had come out, as from a cold bath, braced and tingling. Round went the wheels ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... moment the click of the balls on the other tallies was the only sound. Craig broke the tableau by reaching for his glass of whisky, which he emptied. He tried to assume a nonchalant air, but his hand shook as he replaced the glass on the tabouret. It rolled off to the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... English-speaking pest, and the crowd, with its mind so full of English hatred, does not readily distinguish the American. So drop into a word of English in a cafe: your neighbor glowers and draws away. You face it out with a nonchalant air, but gradually the tension grows, especially when, as happened to-day at the prisoners' camp at Zossen, twenty miles south of Berlin, a great burly Prussian puts a menacing eye on you and says, without introduction: 'It is very ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... paid to the question, the nonchalant intruder went on: "What plunder are you loaded with? Salt or whiskey, or pork or butter, I reckon? Or maybe you carry passengers? Is it a family of emigrants? I see two chaps on the upper deck; who are they? What might your ...
— A Dream of Empire - Or, The House of Blennerhassett • William Henry Venable
... whose long deft fingers could move with equal ease and certainty in all directions. I have seen it at work—and it was a pleasure to watch its acrobatic dexterity, its unerring precision of touch. It could draw with nonchalant facility parallel straight lines, or curved, of just the right thickness and distance from each other—almost as regular as if they had been drawn with ruler or compass—almost, but not quite. The quiteness would have made them mechanical, and robbed them of their charm of ...
— Social Pictorial Satire • George du Maurier
... the window. Suddenly she heard the well-known click of the chain, and she saw Paul fling open the gate, push his bicycle into the yard. She saw him look at the house, and she shrank away. He walked in a nonchalant fashion, and his bicycle went with him as if it were a ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... brightened again. "Is Mr. Bickett in this country? " she asked, her voice carefully nonchalant. "I have not heard anything about him ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... it matter to me?" I said, affecting to speak in a nonchalant way. "I shall never see this woman again, and if I liked her before meeting her, it is quite different now ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... been much amused with the awkwardness and nonchalant manners of the servants in America. Two American ladies who had just returned from Europe, told me that shortly after their arrival at Boston, a young man had been sent to them from Vermont to do ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... at last. Jeffreys could see the boy pacing in a nonchalant way down the platform, evidently expecting anything but ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... cool and nonchalant a minute or so before, fanned himself with the pocket-handkerchief, and turned red, and went white, and went red, and turned white half a dozen times, in twice as many beats ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... following him in the surging crowd in the midst of which he was moving. She watched his progress towards the pavilion, saw him now responding condescendingly to an ingratiating bow, now exchanging friendly, nonchalant greetings with his equals, now assiduously trying to catch the eye of some great one of this world, and taking off his big round hat that squeezed the tips of his ears. All these ways of his she knew, ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... promise, and they parted. Camille had just turned her head and was looking at them. Moreover, quite a number of women had besieged the stall; and the Baroness began to attend to them with the air of a ripe and nonchalant goddess, while Gerard rejoined Duvillard, Fonsegue and Duthil, who were quite excited at the prospect of their ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... of masculine beauty; the habitual expression of the eyes kindly and sympathetic, but as he grew heated in talk, they sparkled like fire; the curves of the mouth bespoke an interesting mixture of finesse, grace, and geniality. His bearing was nonchalant enough, but there was naturally in the carriage of his head, especially when he talked with action, much dignity, energy, and nobleness. It seemed as if enthusiasm were the natural condition for his voice, for his spirit, for every feature. He was only truly ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... to silence the bandits, to check movement, to clamp the situation. Kells was white and radiant; he seemed careless and nonchalant. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... that Medici family and all that belongs to them. So no sympathy with the subjects blinded my eyes, and drew me gradually from all else in the hall to contemplate these. It was simply the love of power and of fertility that held me astonished, which seemed to express with nonchalant ease what other painters attain by laborious efforts. It occurred to me that other painters are famous for single heads, or figures, and that were the striking heads and figures with which these pictures abound ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... even in his letters to her, chafed and was irritable, scolding her for not stamping her envelopes, and recommending her to acquire habits of order and economy! confessing the while that, to escape from his melancholy, he had been playing lansquenet, dining out, going to the theatres, and leading a nonchalant life. ...
— Balzac • Frederick Lawton
... loud voice sank very low, and his easy, nonchalant attitude changed very perceptibly, when Messrs. Reed and Hiscock, the Republican members, took him in hand and subjected him to one of the most merciless cross-examinations ever heard in a committee room. The two keen cross-questioners evidently started out with ...
— Perley's Reminiscences, Vol. 1-2 - of Sixty Years in the National Metropolis • Benjamin Perley Poore |
