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Tete-a-tete   /tɛt-ə-tɛt/   Listen
Tete-a-tete

adjective
1.
Involving two persons; intimately private.  Synonym: head-to-head.  "A head-to-head conversation"






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Tete-a-tete" Quotes from Famous Books



... other side of the hall was Mrs Gaskoin's boudoir, where she and her husband were sitting over the fire, awaiting the result of the tete-a-tete in the drawing-room. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various

... pleaded, "forgive me if for a moment I forgot how altered things are. Indeed, it was not a matter of choice with me. Of course, it will give me the greatest pleasure to dine tete-a-tete with you!" ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... the platform and Tristram frowned, but the financier knew it might not be safe to leave them to a tete-a-tete drive to the house! Zara's temper might not brook it, and he had rushed back from the city, though he hated rushing, in order to be on the ...
— The Reason Why • Elinor Glyn

... advertising campaign and personal efforts among his friends and business associates, they were not by any means the first arrivals. Half a dozen laughing groups were distributed about the round tables in the center space, while several tete-a-tete couples were confidentially ensconced in corners and at cozy tables for two, craftily sheltered by some of the most imposing of ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley

... "Lion d'Or") frequently put back his dinner-hour in hope that some traveler might come to the inn, with whom he could chat in the evening. On the days when his work was done early, he had, for want of something else to do, to come punctually, and endure from soup to cheese a tete-a-tete with Binet. It was therefore with delight that he accepted the landlady's suggestion that he should dine in company with the newcomers, and they passed into the large parlour where Madame Lefrancois, for the purpose of showing off, had had the ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... Monny's at all costs, no matter whether they saw the Sphinx in back view or noseless profile. But Mrs. East's principal occupation in life was not to get me engaged to the Gilded Rose. And either she lost her presence of mind, or else she was not so much enjoying her moonlight tete-a-tete with Fenton, that it was worth while to hide from us behind a ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson

... a thousand miles away. Neither we, nor the day, nor the beauty of the drive had power to woo their glances from coming back to the focal point of interest they had found in each other. They were beginning to talk, not about each other but of themselves—the danger-signal of all tete-a-tete adventures. ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... eight miles south of its present bed the large and flourishing city of Ludhiana once stood on its bank. Ludhiana and its dak bungalow, provides refreshments and a three hours' siesta beneath the cooling and seductive punkah, besides an interesting and instructive tete-a-tete with a Eurasian civil officer spending the day here. Among other startling confidences, this olive-tinted gentleman declares that to him the punkah is unbearable, its pendulous, swinging motion invariably ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... jolting their paradise in a posting-chaise, of breaking up their mystery with clic-clacs, of taking for a nuptial bed the bed of an inn, and of leaving behind them, in a commonplace chamber, at such a night, the most sacred of the souvenirs of life mingled pell-mell with the tete-a-tete of the conductor of the diligence and the maid-servant ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... retired restaurant just off Fifth Avenue; and it being the luncheon hour he made a convenience of necessity and looked about for a table, and discovered Rosalie Dysart and Delancy Grandcourt en tete-a-tete over their ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... The tete-a-tete thus established, Miranda at once began to excuse herself for the means she had taken to attract Odo's attention at the theatre. She had heard from the innkeeper that the Duke of Pianura's cousin, the Cavaliere ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton

... by a glass or two of impeccable port after a good dinner. One would have thought, considering the anguished scene of the night before, that it would have been one of the most miserably impossible tete-a-tete breakfasts in the whole range of such notoriously ghastly meals. But here was Betty, serene and smiling, as though she had been accustomed to breakfast with me every morning of her life, off to the hospital, ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke

... impulsiveness which might compromise him—or of a possible jealousy that might seek revenge. Yet he had no reason to believe that Susy's nature was jealous, or that she was likely to have any cause; but the fact remained that Miss Faulkner's innocent intrusion upon their tete-a-tete affected him more strongly than anything else in his interview with Susy. Once out of the atmosphere of that house, it struck him, too, that Miss Faulkner was almost as much of an alien in it as himself. He wondered what she had been doing there. Could ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte

... been the faintest suspicion of an insult or an advance from any one of the thousands of men and boys of all classes whom they have ridden with upon their 'lifts,' sometimes in dense crowds, sometimes in an involuntary tete-a-tete. ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank

... that Rhoda and Kut-le had eaten tete-a-tete. Hitherto Rhoda had taken her food off to a secluded corner and eaten it alone. There was an intimacy in thus sitting together at the meal Rhoda had prepared, ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow

... said the princess, who had remarked the long tete-a-tete of her niece and Saint-Herem with much impatient anxiety, "it is growing late, and we promised Madame de Sardaigne ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue

... tete-a-tete going on behind the azalea, and Steve grinned as he peeped, then grew sober and said in a tone of despair: "If you had seen the pains I took with that fellow, the patience with which I brushed his wig, the time I spent trying to convince him that ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott

... of the Triumphs of Cally's Life, and the Tete-a-tete following, which vaguely depresses her; of the Little Work-Girl who brought the Note that Sunday, oddly remet at Gentlemen's Furnishings . ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... other particulars which he talked over with the authoress in a promenade on the platform while Dolores was left in the waiting-room; but afterwards he indulged his niece with a tete-a-tete, asking her father's address, and mourning over the length of time it would take to obtain an answer from Fiji. Mr. Mohun had promised to help him, solemnly and kindly promised, for the sake of her whom they had both loved so much, and ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... sheltered from the boisterous afternoon trade winds by the opposite side of the court. But Susy did not seem inclined to linger there long that morning, in spite of Mrs. Peyton's evident desire for a maternal tete-a-tete. The nervous preoccupation and capricious ennui of an indulged child showed in her pretty but discontented face, and knit her curved eyebrows, and Peyton saw a look of pain pass over his wife's face as the young girl suddenly ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte

... in the past and had just made such a sacrifice to please her. She consented to accept his declaration and permitted him to believe that she was not unmoved by his passion. The arrival of the Duchess, her mother-in-law, put an end to this tete-a-tete, and prevented the Duc from demonstrating his ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette

... girl approved her escort's manner and bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied intimacy of the tete-a-tete across a table than a subtle change manifested itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of his talk, but the note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the end, when he had paid the ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... to breakfast she was disappointed to find that Bud was not there, and she was obliged to suffer a breakfast tete-a-tete with West. By dint, however, of asking him questions instead of allowing him to take the initiative, she hurried through her breakfast quite successfully, acquiring a superficial knowledge of her fellow-boarder quite distant and satisfactory. She knew where he spent his college ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill

... me, if I do not give you your right title. Yes, with you. Only for one quarter of an hour; but alone, quite alone, in private tete-a-tete. He has something very particular to say ...
— Minna von Barnhelm • Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

... would be ruined in the eyes of his people if he married a foreigner, ruined instantly and irretrievably, no matter how gracious and pleasing Joan might seem to be in their eyes, and, true to his military caste, he wasted no time in making the Princess aware of his motive in seeking this tete-a-tete conversation. ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy

... pecuniary advantages? The young man looked very pale as he went to smoke his cigar in Mr. Sheldon's garden. Charlotte followed him with anxious eyes, and wondered at the sudden gravity of his manner. George Sheldon also was puzzled by his brother's desire for a tete-a-tete. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon

... premise that I am neither of a condition of life, nor condition of mind, to mingle as a friend with those of whose affairs I am about to treat so familiarly, being far too crotchety a fellow not to prefer a saunter with my fishing-tackle on my back, or an evening tete-a-tete with my library of quaint old books, to all the good men's feasts ever eaten at the cost of a formal country visit. Nevertheless, I am not so cold of heart as to be utterly devoid of interest in the destinies of those whose ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various

... some slight acquaintance with the young beauty and her chaperon, found himself victimized by half a regiment at a time. Patsy soon had partners in plenty, and the Prince Eitel, who had looked forward to a pleasant tete-a-tete, retired to a corner from which he gloomed more and more murkily. He folded his arms and regarded ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett

... Against such competition I Lift up a disregarded cry. Since all ignore my just complaint, By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!" Now, the Republicans, who all Are saints, began at once to bawl Against his competition; so There was a devil of a go! They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete In acrimonious debate, Till Democrats, forlorn and lone, Had hopes of coming by their own. That evil to avert, in haste The two belligerents embraced; But since 'twere wicked to relax A tittle of the Sacred Tax, 'Twas finally agreed to grant The bold Insurgent-protestant ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce

... next afternoon and Mary sat on the veranda steps with him, while Helen made hay with Wally on a tete-a-tete above. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston

... well accustomed to being appropriated by elder ladies, with the evident understanding that he preferred them. He would simply have to make the best of it and show his collection as gracefully as possible and leave out the rose-garden and the delicious little tete-a-tete with this young rose of a girl and think of something else. For Karl von Rosen in these days was accustoming himself to a strange visage in his own mental looking-glass. He had not altered his attitude toward women but toward one woman, ...
— The Butterfly House • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Princesse Russe having a migraine that afternoon, the two friends had the pleasure of a tete-a-tete dinner at half-past six. They sat by one of the great windows of what used to be the chapel of the monastery, but is now the dining-room of the Inselhaus, and enjoyed the sweet lake breeze, while their tongues ran delightfully. Rosina, liberally refreshed by a long nap, and mightily ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner

... correct for girls to suggest a walk, ride, hint a wish to dance or row, or tacitly invite a tete-a-tete. Let those who wish such favors ask for them. The girl who shows herself most anxious for young men's attentions generally receives fewest. Despite "the woman's movement," man still insists on his privilege of ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter

... hands, with sensitive upward glance, the receptacle containing her manuscript, and set a brisk pace, at which she insured the passing of the other guests along the road, making visible her triumph over circumstance and at the same time obviating untimely intrusion of a tete-a-tete conversation. ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott

... I have a moment's time to regard my inner self in the mirror of consciousness. No mental analysis now; no long hours of retrospection, no tete-a-tete interviews with my soul. At times I felt as if I had lost my identity. I was a slave of the genie Gold, releasing it from its prison in the frozen bowels of the earth. I was an automaton turning a crank in the frozen stillness of ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service

... are leaving Soeur Angelique and Miss Vernor to have a regular tete-a-tete of it, are we not? But you evade my question in a very unbecoming way, Miss Phebe. Tell me, what ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield

... into tete-a-tete conversation in the presence of others, or refer to any topic of conversation which is not of common interest and commonly known. Mysterious allusions or assumed understandings with one or two members of a group are ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway

... practised with less success the art of disguising impatience. What these ladies were waiting for would not have been apparent and was perhaps not very definite to their own minds. Madame Merle waited for Osmond to release their young friend from her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because Madame Merle did. The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the time ripe for one of her pretty perversities. She might have desired for some minutes to place it. Her brother wandered with Isabel to the end of the garden, to which point ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James

... Nigel spoke to him almost immediately, making some remark about the ship in English. The stranger answered in the same language, but with a strong foreign accent. He seemed quite willing to talk. He apologized for interrupting their tete-a-tete, but said he had no choice, as the saloon was completely full. They declared they were quite ready for company, Nigel with his usual sympathetic geniality, Mrs. Armine with a sort of graceful formality beneath which—or so her husband ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens

... growing pale, "Are engaged." The tete-a-tete was beyond her supposed strength. His melodious voice, associated in her mind with divine worship; the burning of those beautiful eyes in which she seemed to see her own love; the attitude of his arms as if, not knowing it, he were reaching out ...
— Fran • John Breckenridge Ellis

... corner of the white-and-gold restaurant at the Ritz on the following evening, Prince Shan and Immelan dined tete-a-tete, Immelan in the best of spirits, talking of the pleasant trifles of the world, drinking champagne and pointing out notabilities; Prince Shan, his features and expression unchanging, and his face as white as the perfectly fitting shirt ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... that the face of the chevalier does not appear? is he too much occupied with his chicken to have heard the carriage? Let us see. As to you, monseigneur," continued Dubois, "be assured; I will not disturb your tete-a-tete. Enjoy at your pleasure this commencement of ingenuity, which promises such happy results. Ah! monseigneur, it is certain that you ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)

... an evening, when they were enjoying a tete-a-tete by the fireside, she would place on the tea table the leather box containing the "trash," as M. Lantin called it. She would examine the false gems with a passionate attention as though they were in some way connected with a deep and secret joy; and she often insisted on passing ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant

... were sent off in sound condition. No catastrophe occurred; and the continual occupation and responsibility drove away all the low spirits that so often had tried the home-keeping girl. She did enjoy those tete-a-tete evenings, when Felix opened to her more than he had ever done before; and yet it was an immense relief to have the day fixed for Wilmet's return, and how much more to have her walking into the room with all the children clinging about her in ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge

... entertained a good deal during the winter; much of the time had also been passed in New Orleans in various forms of mild dissipation. She was looking forward to a period of unbroken rest, now, and undisturbed tete-a-tete with her husband, when he informed her that Gouvernail was coming up to ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... for that. The young man, at first almost as much startled as his companion at the uncanny apparition, naturally experienced a revulsion of indignation at such an extraordinary interruption to his tete-a-tete, and stepped up to Mr. Morgan as if about to inflict summary chastisement. But perceiving that he had to do with an elderly man, he contented himself with demanding in a decidedly aggressive tone what the devil he meant by such ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy

... I almost feel as if I were interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame. I haven't heard anything so old-fashioned and conservative as that sigh since I have been in California. I thought you never ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte

... inveigled Guy Martin into a tete-a-tete corner with her, but after a polite quarter of an hour, he declared he must move around and confer with a few people concerning their parts in ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells

... glance melted into his; again she flashed sufficient message to redden Longstreet's cheeks and make his own eyes burn with embarrassment. And since it was obvious that henceforward the combat must be waged in the open, she did not await the unlikely opportunity of some distant tete-a-tete to emphasize her intention. Before she mounted she managed to allow the glowingly embarrassed man to hold her two hands; ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory

... Victoria with her best calm smile, and by Professor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was not restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for his tete-a-tete. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield

... uneasy at being pounced upon, but that might be merely because he was balked of a tete-a-tete with herself. For while Clara went on to the gate with their hostess he lingered a moment ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain

... what a vast amount of mutual biography two young persons of the opposite sexes can exchange in a brief tete-a-tete. By the time Milly and the young artist were strolling slowly northward in the sombre city twilight, they had become old friends, and Milly was hearing about the girl in Rome, the fascination of artist life in Munich, the stunning ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick

... confidence. When a man gives you the gold bottle you know that he is really serious, or as serious as he can be, which isn't saying much for most men. And not half a bottle; I've had half-bottles heaps of times at tete-a-tete dinners. It always means indecision, which is a beastly thing in anyone, and especially in a man. It's insulting, for one thing.... Oh, Peter, do look at that girl over there. Do you suppose she has anything ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable

... the skipper spent hard at work with the cargo, bustling about with feverish energy as the afternoon wore on and left him to imagine his rival tete-a-tete with Annis. After tea a reaction set in, and, bit by bit the mate, by means of timely sympathy, learnt all that there was to know. Henry, without a display of anything, except, ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs

... elevator and its operator were lost in the dimness of the upper stories, and before they descended several objectionable persons had joined Laurie, evidently expecting to be taken to upper floors themselves. This meant a delay in his tete-a-tete with the boy, and Laurie turned upon the person nearest him, an inoffensive spinster, a look of such intense resentment that it haunted that lady ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan

... parted the golden velvet hangings which shrouded the entrance to the dimly lighted conservatory, he espied a half-dozen couples disposed on as many small benches under the drooping fronds in varied attitudes of tete-a-tete. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... saw him an inmate of the house, as if no doubts had ever been cast on the legitimacy of their union. What thoughts passed through her mind during the long 'tete-a-tete'? She had accused this man of imposture, and now, notwithstanding her secret conviction, she was obliged to appear as if she had no suspicion, as if she had been mistaken, to humiliate herself before the impostor, and ask forgiveness for the insanity of ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARTIN GUERRE • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... cause may have been that the guest was handicapped by circumstances—to be good company without discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may have been that the daring spirits felt their courage forsake them in a tete-a-tete; but it is certain that once when Florozonde drove home in the small hours to the tattered aunt who lived on her, she exclaimed violently that, "All this silly fake was giving her the hump, and that she wished she were 'on the road' again, with a jolly ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick

... Kennedy, with well-simulated excitement, was racing me in the car up to the Greenes' again. We literally burst unannounced into the tete-a-tete on the porch. ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... among the cushions of a divan with a book. Her daughter occupied the undivided half of a tete-a-tete chair with a blond athlete in a clerical coat and a reversed collar. Miss Virginia was sitting alone at a window, but she rose and ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde

... back kind of hot. "But Pyramid Gordon was white enough to want to divide his pile among the poor prunes he'd put out here and there along the way. You're on the list too, and the chief object of this little tete-a-tete is to frame up some plan of ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford

... in the room an hour and a half, the cynosure of all eyes. There is a great deal of sociability there. Three hundred men all talking diagonally at each other at the same time, reminds me of a tete-a-tete I once had with a warm personal friend, who was a boiler-maker. He invited me to come around to the shop and visit him. He said we could crawl down through the manhole into the boiler and have a nice ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... first of their tete-a-tete, she sounded him cautiously, trying to discover if his feelings toward Linton were inspired wholly by political differences. She seemed to suspect there was something more behind it, even at the risk of flattering herself. But she had ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day

... up; the little, red-coloured, piratical-looking pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the TETE-A-TETE ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... his connection with Kitty, went everywhere that he was likely to meet her, and her joy at meeting him easily betrayed itself in her eyes and her smile. And he did not refrain from actually making love to Anna on the occasions when they were able to engage in tete-a-tete conversations. Nor was he positively repelled. Soon the acquaintance became more and more intimate. Meantime, Aleksei as usual would come home and, instead of seeking his wife's society, would bury himself in his library amongst his books. But suddenly the idea that his wife could ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.

... traveled to Manton and Enid, a troubled something in his expression. I could see that the promoter was making the most of his tete-a-tete with the girl, but she seemed perfectly at ease and quite capable of handling the man, and I, certainly, was more disturbed at ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve

... tete-a-tete. Instinctively they felt each other's presence, felt each other's thought coming to them through the thin partition. It was charming; they were perfectly happy. There in the stillness that settled over the flat in the half hour after midnight the two old people "kept company," enjoying ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris

... Arthur Ansard at a briefless table, tete-a-tete with his wig on a block. A. casts a disconsolate look upon his companion, ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat

... an almost unbearable degree. In the large carved and curtained drawing-room he waited for Betty. The tea-things were prepared; there would be no further need of service until Betty should ring. Everything was arranged for an uninterrupted tete-a-tete. Prosper stood near an ebony table, his shoulder brushed by tall, red roses, and felt his nerves tighten and his pulses hasten in their beat. "The tall child ... the tall child ..." he had called her by that name so often and ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt

... at first, Abner Nott strove with profound levity to indicate his arch comprehension of the situation, and in vain, later, becoming alarmed, he endeavored, with cheerful gravity, to indicate his utter obliviousness of any but a business significance in their tete-a-tete. ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... expressive of all his feelings; his lips parted in such loving admiration of his mother and closed so lovingly upon her own. After a profound bow to myself and a hearty grasp of the hand, he drew her to the crimson cushions of a tete-a-tete standing near, and passing his arm around her held her closely to him, as if afraid he would lose her. I envied her, and any heart might well envy the passionate devotion of a son ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell

... that mean?" I wondered. I had supposed the two men had come in alone, but there must have been a third person. Who could it be? Had Lord Mountstuart been arranging a tete-a-tete between ...
— The Powers and Maxine • Charles Norris Williamson

... the American Beauties and the beribboned bonbon box was taking her coffee as usual in bed. This luxurious habit had never been hers until she came to Bel-Air; but it was her mother's custom, and rather than undergo a tete-a-tete breakfast with her ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... arts of a civilised slave among good-natured barbarians - are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the garden, on the road or the hillside, or TETE-A-TETE and apart from interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much from any single woman; and nowhere more often than in married life. Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes. The disputes are valueless; they ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson

... the letter she stamped her foot and declared it an outrage. She suggested that somebody wanted the La Salle. "Well," she said, resigning herself to her fate, "I bet I have that coach-seat out of the cab,—it'll make a nice tete-a-tete for the front room. Superannuated!" she went on with growing disgust. "I bet you can put any man on the first division down ...
— The Last Spike - And Other Railroad Stories • Cy Warman

... Easter, when, taking advantage of a momentary tete-a-tete Colia handed Aglaya a letter, remarking that he "had orders to deliver it to her privately." She stared at him in amazement, but he did not wait to hear what she had to say, and went out. Aglaya broke the seal, ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... before he returned. When he did, it was to find Hazen and the lawyer awaiting him in ill-concealed impatience. These two were much too incongruous in tastes and interests to be very happy in a forced and prolonged tete-a-tete. ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green

... character, and sure, with her father to second her assurance, that boarding-school was the proper place to form it. Eddy was also at school, and Mrs. Upton, with the alternative of flight or an unbroken tete-a-tete with her husband before her, chose the former. There was no breach, no crash; any such disturbances had taken place long before; she simply slid away, and her prolonged absences seemed symbols of fundamental and long ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... Lucille shuddered. This tete-a-tete did not amuse her. She rose and looked over one of the bridge tables for a minute. The Prince, who was dealing, ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... please," he said quietly and with some show of spirit. "It is not necessary that you should have a further misconception of my motives or of my agility. I did not seek this—er—tete-a-tete. My servant engaged this carriage. I had not hoped to have the honor of accompanying you. Unfortunately, circumstances forced ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs

... to the race of footmen. They point out how plenteously footmen abounded before 1790, and how steadily their numbers have declined ever since. I do not dispute the statistics. One knows from the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers that Mr. Horne Tooke, dining tete-a-tete with the first Lord Lansdowne, had counted so many as thirty footmen in attendance on the meal. That was a high figure—higher than in Rogers' day, and higher far, I doubt not, than in ours. What I refuse to believe is that the wearing of powder has caused among footmen an ever-increasing ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm

... about, and make each other innumerable presents of daintily bound volumes, until the clerks grew to know them so well that they never went through the form of asking where the books were to be sent? And those tete-a-tete luncheons at her house when her mother was upstairs with a headache or a dressmaker, and the long rides and walks in the Park in the afternoon, and the rush down town to dress, only to return to dine with them, ten minutes late always, and always with some new excuse, which was allowed if it ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis

... said Mrs. Hardy, "that the Pastor and Helga might come to us to-morrow, John, and that, as you are so impatient for a tete-a-tete interview with Helga, you can have a ramble in your woods at Rosendal, while I discuss the matters that have to be ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary

... hazardous as jumping a mining claim, but Calvin Gray succeeded and eventually he and "Bob" found themselves facing each other over a discolored tablecloth, reading a soiled menu card to a perspiring waiter. It was in some ways an ideal retreat for a tete-a-tete, for the bellowed orders, the rattle of crockery, the voice of the hungry food battlers, and the clash of their steel made intimate conversation easy. Gray noted with approval the ease with which his dainty companion adapted herself to the surroundings and remarked ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... dining-room—an apartment as plainly furnished as the one they had quitted, but in its shelves, cupboards, and closely fitting boarding bearing out the general nautical suggestion of the house—and seated themselves before a small table on which their frugal meal was spread. In this tete-a-tete position Jim suddenly laid down his knife and fork ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte

... would fly to obey the royal mandate; and soon seated at the beauty's feet, in the glow of the warm wood fire and in the glory of her heavenly presence, he would lose himself in a delicious dream of love and music. No one ever interrupted their tete-a-tete. And Ishmael grew to feel that he belonged to his liege lady; that they were forever inseparate and inseparable. And thus his days passed in one delusive dream of bliss until the time came when he was ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... became general, and the girl did not look up for several seconds; but the young man on her right, who had not missed a word of the previous tete-a-tete, could not give attention to the story Mrs. Blackwell was telling, for pondering ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill

... he was brought before the Duke of Berwick, who addressed several questions to him, which Catinat answered; he then told the duke he had something of importance to impart to him and to him alone. The duke was not very anxious for a tete-a-tete with Catinat; however, having ordered his hands to be securely bound, and telling Sandricourt not to go away, he consented to hear what ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... limits of entertainment. Then there is the awful possibility that the neighbors at table may have nothing to say to each other; and in the best-selected company one may sit beside a stupid man—that is, stupid for the purpose of a 'tete-a-tete'. But this is not the worst of it. No one can talk well without an audience; no one is stimulated to say bright things except by the attention and questioning and interest of other minds. There is little inspiration in side talk to one or two. Nobody ought to go to a dinner who is not ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Fletcher had once confessed to finding so captivating in the demure governess. He evidently thought so still, and played his part with spirit; for, while apparently enjoying a conversation which contained no allusion to the past, the memory of it gave piquancy to that long tete-a-tete. ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott

... a very brave young man," she replied with a roguish look at Bennett's discomfiture over the interruption of the tete-a-tete. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve

... Trenor's unusual excitability, with its too evident explanation, and the thought of being alone with him, with her friend out of reach upstairs, at the other end of the great empty house, did not conduce to a desire to prolong their TETE-A-TETE. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... of eagerness and followed her, wondering if her intriguing sentence before breakfast had been nothing more than a clever piece of chicane, planned to entice me into a tete-a-tete. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford

... shut up with Jane, for three hours to come; I have really talked myself out of breath; but that is always the way, with me, as you know, of old." And the two girls, hand-in-hand, ran lightly up stairs, where Elinor, making an excuse of Mrs. Taylor's note, left them to a confidential tete-a-tete. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... a grating before each of their windows and bolts to their doors, that they may not refuse to continue my visitors. So much do I esteem them that I am going to make the Comte de la Fere a visit, that I may converse with him tete-a-tete, and that we may not be disturbed at our interview you must conduct him, as I said before, to the pavilion of the orangery; that, you know, is my daily promenade. Well, while taking my walk I will ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew her chair nearer to that of ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy

... to address her whom he had been lately so anxious to meet with, and embarrassed by a TETE-A-TETE to which his own timid inexperience, gave some awkwardness, the party had proceeded more than a hundred yards before Darsie assumed courage to accost, or even to look at, his companion. Sensible, however, of the impropriety ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... who had been the third at the ordinary, and would take no part either in the conversation or in Pogson's champagne, now took up his hat, and, grunting, left the room, when the happy bagman had the delight of a tete-a-tete. The Baroness did not appear inclined to move: it was cold; a fire was comfortable, and she had ordered none in her apartment. Might Pogson give her one more glass of champagne, or would her ladyship prefer "something hot." Her ladyship gravely said, she never took ANYTHING ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray

... condescension to explain yourself. You are safe in my company now. Possibly I was mistook, but I supposed you not unwilling for our tete-a-tete. Accept my apologies if this is not the case. I thrust no attentions ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington

... enjoying his cup of unexpected tea at Mrs. Derrick's, Squire Deacon and Miss Cilly had a sociable tete-a-tete over theirs; for Joe Deacon, who was in the full enjoyment of some fourteen years of boyhood, scarcely made a third in the conversation until his ...
— Say and Seal, Volume I • Susan Warner

... or did nothing in that tete-a-tete luncheon his wife might not have heard or seen, but the fact that he talked entirely about you and art, and other universal subjects, and seemingly avoided any reference to his wife ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... be easy to cite a great number of other remarkable passages where Jerome shows himself the most determined and implacable opponent of those secret "tete-a-tete" between a priest and a female, which, under the plausible pretext of mutual advice and spiritual consolation, are generally nothing but bottomless pits of infamy and perdition for both. But ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... Ginger Kemp turned bright scarlet and glared before him at the uniformed official, who was regarding their tete-a-tete with the indulgent eye of one who has been through this sort of thing himself. "I say, look here, will ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse

... a suspicious glance toward the spot where Lady Holberton and Mr. T—— were conversing together, she adroitly placed herself in a position to give to our conversation the privacy of a diplomatic tete-a-tete. ...
— The Lumley Autograph • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... to pass, in the course of the evening, that Mr. Ulstervelt, supremely confident from the effect of past achievements, drew the unsuspecting Mrs. Medcroft into a secluded tete-a-tete. It is not of record that he was ever a diplomatic wooer; one in haste never is. Suffice it to say, Mrs. Medcroft, her cheeks flaming, her eyes wide with indignation, suddenly left the side of the indomitable Freddie ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon



Words linked to "Tete-a-tete" :   love seat, head-to-head, couch, conversation, sofa, vis-a-vis, lounge, private, loveseat, pillow talk



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