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More "Coquetry" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... soft eyes were fixed steadfastly upon his. There was a sort of question in them which he seemed to have surprised there more than once during the last few days. A sudden uneasiness seized him. His brain was crowded with unwilling fancies. There were, without doubt, symptoms of coquetry in her appearance. He had spoken of blue as the one sublime color. As she leaned a little back in her chair, resting from her labors, he could scarcely help noticing the blue silk stockings and suede shoes which matched the hidden color of her skirt, the ribbon which gleamed from the dusky ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... toilet with feminine coquetry, put on a white waistcoat, which suited him better with the coat, sent for the hairdresser to give him a finishing touch with the curling-iron, for he had preserved his hair, and started very early in order to show his eagerness to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... smart slippers, and put on a pair of walking-shoes, tying them, with her foot on a chair, in a quiet disregard of her visitor's presence; took a brown holland sunbonnet from the wall, clapped it over her browner hair and hanging braids, and tied it under her chin with apparently no sense of coquetry in the act—becoming though it was—and without glancing at him. Alas for Madison's ethics! The torment of her worldly speech and youthful contempt was nothing to this tacit ignoring of the manhood of her lover—this silent acceptance of him as something even lower than her husband. He ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... less distinction and more peace. The First Consul required his sister to accompany her husband to San Domingo. She was forced to obey, and to leave Paris, where she swayed the scepter of fashion, and eclipsed all other women by her elegance and coquetry, as well as by her incomparable beauty, to brave a dangerous climate, and the ferocious companions of Christophe and Dessalines. At the end of the year 1801 the admiral's ship, The Ocean, sailed from ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... like to have been trouble between the two friends, for Lars loved a maiden at the farm, who out of coquetry often smiled at Gustavus, until the giant Dalesman became terribly jealous. One day when she brought them their noon-day ale, she handed it first to Gustavus, who, after drinking, returned it with a pleasant word and a pat ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... doll eyes rolled a double circuit of coquetry and slanted off with a suggestive glance at the massive doorway of the Hawker-Sponge mansion, one of the most ...
— Officer 666 • Barton W. Currie
... interview, Mr. Chester, a cat—or a bear rather—in a strange garret, roamed the Tiffany home and entertained her who would listen. He warmed to Kate especially, and that household fairy, in her flights between errands of mercy, played him with all the prettiness of her coquetry. At luncheon he quite lost his embarrassment and responded to the advances of three friendly humans. Yes ma-am, he had been glad to learn that Bertram was doing well in the city. He had five sons, all doing well. He'd risked letting Bert try college, ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... repeat to you, mademoiselle," said D'Artagnan, "what M. de Bragelonne said of you, at Antibes, when he already meditated death: 'If pride and coquetry have misled her, I pardon her while despising her. If love has produced her error, I pardon her, but I swear that no one could have loved her ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... class, he insisted upon exchanging his own riding horse, "Five Spot," for the sorry mule which the Duchess rode. But even this act did not draw the party into any closer sympathy. The young woman readjusted her somewhat draggled plumes with a feeble, faded coquetry; Mother Shipton eyed the possessor of "Five Spot" with malevolence, and Uncle Billy included the whole party ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... proximity he watched her with a new attention, and he saw that her father, too, studied her covertly, as though realizing that he had a grown daughter on his hands. Her way with Harwood was not without coquetry; she tapped his arm with her fan lightly when he refused to enter into a discussion of his attentions, of which she protested she knew much, to Miss Bosworth. He admitted having called on Miss Bosworth once; her brother was a Yale man, and had asked him to the house on the score of ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... veil, so as with some coquetry to display a bold Roman profile, a full dark bright eye, and a cheek over whose natural olive art shed ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... meant domesticity and dignity to Sissy. In Split it bred and fostered a spirit of coquetry; she believed herself to be very French in long skirts. "I'll just say she said 'Yes' when I asked her. She never knows what she ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... please, and the wish to hold other hearts than the royal one she had enslaved, in thraldom, all might, perhaps, have been well. But, alas like many other beautiful women, she had a strong tendency to coquetry. How severely she suffered for it, it is the purpose of this history to relate. An excellent description of her has been given by a contemporary writer, the Comte de Chateaubriand, who, while somewhat disparaging her personal attractions, speaks in rapturous terms of her ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... and nodded her little head at me with an air of sublimated coquetry that would have done credit to a ...
— She • H. Rider Haggard
... weight of her father's words had stilled and solemnised her, removing every trace of coquetry. Her head was bowed as at the benediction; she was sobbing. Mitri patted her head and bade ...
— The Valley of the Kings • Marmaduke Pickthall
... time other dangerous resources which may tempt the unoccupied and uninterested girl into their excitements. Those whose minds are of too active and vivacious a nature to live on without an object, may too easily find one in the dangerous and selfish amusements of coquetry—in the seeking for admiration, and its enjoyment when obtained. The very woman who might have been the most happy herself in the enjoyment of intellectual pursuits, and the most extensively useful to others, is often the one who, from misdirected energies and feeling, will pursue most eagerly, ...
— The Young Lady's Mentor - A Guide to the Formation of Character. In a Series of Letters to Her Unknown Friends • A Lady
... languishing eyes of celestial blue, conducted us into a very neat parlour, and observing how loosely and lightly my little girl was clad, began to pity her in the sweetest accents, regardless of the rosy down of health on her cheeks. This same damsel was dressed—it was Sunday—with taste and even coquetry, in a cotton jacket, ornamented with knots of blue ribbon, fancifully disposed to give life to her fine complexion. I loitered a little to admire her, for every gesture was graceful; and, amidst the other villagers, she looked like a garden lily suddenly rearing ...
— Letters written during a short residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark • Mary Wollstonecraft
... mouth relaxed but she did not shift her gaze. "You forget. It was not planned—by me." On rare occasions Mary Louise could slip from her matter-of-fact self into coquetry and back again before one realized. It was like the play of a lightning shuttle, so quick that one rarely caught the flash of the back stroke. Joe had erred ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... with the wild black hair and the awful "picture hat"!' But they stared for a few moments as if, in despite of themselves, fascinated by this lady be-feathered, be-crimped, and be-ringed, wearing her huge hat cocked over one ear with a defiant coquetry above a would-be conquering smile. The unerring wits in the crowd had already picked her out for special attention, but her active 'public form' was even more torturing to the fastidious feminine sense ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... her hair is trimmed, and curled, and brushed with exquisite neatness; and her whole dress arranged with that nice attention to the becoming, the suitable both in form and texture, which would be called the highest degree of coquetry, if it did not deserve the better name of propriety. Never was such a transmogrification beheld. The lass is really pretty, and Ned Miles has discovered that she is so. There he stands, the rogue, close at ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 12, - Issue 345, December 6, 1828 • Various
... toilet-boxes, containing blond sponges, curling-irons, sea-wolves' teeth to polish the nails, the green rouge of Egypt, which turns to a most beautiful pink on touching the skin, powders to darken the eyelashes and eyebrows, and all the refinements that feminine coquetry could invent. Other litters were freighted with purple robes of the finest linen and of all possible shades from the incarnadine hue of the rose to the deep crimson of the blood of the grape; calasires of the linen of Canopus, which is thrown all white into the vat of the dyer, ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... partisans.' Erasmus is one of those whom contact with others weakens. The less he has to address and to consider others, friends or enemies, the more truly he utters his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry, reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore it should not be thought that we get to know him to the core from his letters. Natures like his, which all contact with men unsettles, give their best and deepest when they speak ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... Madame Bouchereau trifled with an elegant nosegay, whose perfume she frequently inhaled, and whose crimson flowers contrasted so well with the fairness of her complexion, as to justify a suspicion that there was some coquetry in the manoeuvre executed with such apparent negligence. Leaning back in her chair, she frequently turned her head, the better to hear Magnian's smiling and half-whispered remarks. The husband paid ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... loyal to her own sex—and all the weakest of that dear miscellany, nourishing, cherishing next her soft heart, voicelessly flattering, hopes that she would have died sooner than have acknowledged. She tore off her nightcap, and her hair fell about her shoulders in profusion. Undying coquetry awoke. By the faint light of her nocturnal rush, she stood before the looking-glass, carried her shapely arms above her head, and gathered up the treasures of her tresses. She was never backward ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... said, with that coquetry which somehow or other is in the heart of every young girl, "I have often been sorry that I am not able to read, but never so much so as when your housekeeper brought me your letter. I kept the paper in my hands, which spoke ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... ball and with Mrs. Fairbrother's full cognizance. The effectual way in which she had wielded her fan between the glittering ornament on her breast and the inquisitive glances constantly leveled upon it might at the time have been due to coquetry, but to them it looked much more like an expression of fear lest the deception in which she was indulging should be discovered. No one fixed the time where I did; but then, no one but myself had watched the scene with the eyes of love; besides, and ...
— The Woman in the Alcove • Anna Katharine Green
... now her image by rote, and as I conned the traits in memory it seemed as if I read her very heart. She was dressed with something of her mother's coquetry and love of positive colour. Her robe, which I knew she must have made with her own hands, clung about her with a cunning grace. After the fashion of that country, besides, her bodice stood open in the middle, in a long slit, and here, in spite of the poverty ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... want to—to do what you want me to?" she asked, and she was even able to summon a smile with a tinge of coquetry that served to draw the wily Senator ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... dramatic instinct, which saw that such forms were a drag upon the action of a play. And yet at times Lyly could use his clumsy weapon with great precision and effect. How admirably, for example, does he express in his antithetical fashion the essence of coquetry. Iffida, speaking to Fidus of one she loved but wished to test, is made to say, "I seem straight-laced as one neither accustomed to such suites, nor willing to entertain such a servant, yet so warily, as putting him from me with my ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... belle; never was; never can be; have neither wealth, beauty nor coquetry enough to make me one. I have no lovers nor admirers to break their hearts about me, one way or another; but there is one honest fellow—hem! never mind; I feel as if I belonged to somebody else; that's all. I am very much obliged to you, ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... too sacred. She was a trifle appalled by it, if the truth must be told. If Richard had scattered his love-making through the month of her convalescence, or if he had made his avowal in a different mood, perhaps Margaret might have met him with some natural coquetry. But Richard's tone and manner had been such as to suppress any instinct of the kind. His declaration, moreover, had amazed her. Margaret's own feelings had been more or less plain to her that past month, and she had diligently disciplined ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... continued the lively girl, taking it off, and shaking down a profusion of sable ringlets, which, half laughing, half blushing, she separated with her white slender fingers, in order to clear them away from her beautiful face and piercing hazel eyes. If there was any coquetry in the action, it was well disguised by the careless indifference of her manner. I could not help saying, "that, judging of the family from what I saw, I should suppose the ...
— A Book of English Prose - Part II, Arranged for Secondary and High Schools • Percy Lubbock
... Straw, Witch Hazel and Colored Daisy—"Your folly and coquetry have broken the spell of ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... do wish you could have seen her in that frilled white thing with the two huge blue bows at the ends of the long plaits at my dinner-dance the other night, standing and looking at everybody with all the fascination and coquetry of—of—well, that little Golden Bird peeping at us from the left-hand corner of Mrs. Red Ally's right wing. Where did ...
— The Golden Bird • Maria Thompson Daviess
... delay, and such a bunch of coquetry as I have never seen. She raised one objection after another; but Tom was a firm man, and his late experiences in the wilderness had made him impatient of trifling. He had promised the Kentucky settlers, fighting for their lives in their blockhouses, that he would come back again. And a resolute ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... us if we're kind; And yet upbraid us if we seem severe! Do you, t' encourage us to tell our mind, Yourselves put off disguise, and be sincere. You talk of coquetry!—Your own false hearts Compel our sex to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... who crossed their path, were advancing slowly towards the three crosses of Paullinus, which stood in a line, not far from the church-porch. They were females, one about five-and-twenty, very comely, and habited in smart holiday attire, put on with considerable rustic coquetry, so as to display a very neat foot and ankle, and with plenty of ribands in her fine chestnut hair. The other was a very different person, far advanced in years, bent almost double, palsy-stricken, her arms and limbs shaking, her head nodding, her chin wagging, ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... no tantalizing coquetry in Zany's manner now. In a moment she was in Chunk's arms sobbing, "Tek me way off fum dis place. I go wid you now, dis berry minute, en I neber breve easy till we way, way off enywhar, I doan keer whar. Oh, Chunk, you doan know w'at been gwine on en I darsn't ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... figure she became more graceful, and no woman ever had a finer complexion. Being endowed with a most sturdy constitution, she owed all her beauty to nature and nothing to artifice; her face needed no paint, her wit no coquetry; with no fondness for luxury or dress, possessing simple and quiet tastes, never striving for effect, always preferring half-tints to a blaze of light, her expression and demeanor always had a quality of simplicity and directness which fascinated ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... then the "Fool" would rush away to the valley, and be received by Miss Milly with a certain reserve of manner that finally disappeared in a flush of color, some increased vivacity, and a pardonable coquetry. And so the days passed. Miss Milly grew better in health, and more troubled in mind; and Mr. Hawkins became more and more embarrassed; and Five Forks smiled, and rubbed its hands, and waited for the approaching denoument. And then it came—but not, perhaps, in the manner that ...
— Tales of the Argonauts • Bret Harte
... mere prettiness—a quite unusual prettiness, it had to be admitted; a slightly haggard prettiness, perhaps; a prettiness a little worn by work, a little coarsened by wind and weather; a prettiness too desperate for youth and too tragic for coquetry, but for those very reasons doubtless all the more haunting. He was obliged to remind himself that it was nothing to him, since he had never swerved from the intention to marry Lois Willoughby as soon as he ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... left without words for the only real feeling which she had ever experienced. And indeed she really was not one of those women who cannot make up their minds to grow old. Long before the hour of curfew—though indeed there had perhaps never been much fire in her to put out—all her coquetry, all her feminine eagerness to captivate and charm, all her aspirations towards fame or fashion or social success had been transferred to the account of her son, this tall, good-looking young fellow in the correct attire of the modern ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... broke off one of the snowy blossoms, and, with childlike coquetry, fastened it in ...
— The Nameless Castle • Maurus Jokai
... pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with your wife. One of the "Spectators" is very just that says, "A man ought always to be upon his guard against spleen and a too severe philosophy; a woman, against levity and coquetry." If we go to Naples, I will make no acquaintance there of any kind, and you will be in a place where a variety of agreeable objects will dispose you to be ever pleased. If such a thing is possible, this will secure our everlasting happiness; and I am ready to wait on ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... delighted in melting tenderness and playful coquetry, in "Statira" or "Millamant;" and even at an advanced age, when she ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... science. Just see with what admirable stupidity girls lend themselves to reap the benefit of the education which is imposed upon them in France; we give them in charge to nursery maids, to companions, to governesses who teach them twenty tricks of coquetry and false modesty, for every single noble and true idea which they impart to them. Girls are brought up as slaves, and are accustomed to the idea that they are sent into the world to imitate their grandmothers, ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... quarter, he noticed a well-dressed young girl walking before him in company with a delicate looking boy of seven or eight years. Something in the carriage of her graceful figure, something in a certain consciousness and ostentation of coquetry toward her youthful escort, attracted his attention. Yet it struck him that she was neither related to the child nor accustomed to children's ways, and that she somewhat unduly emphasized this to the passers-by, particularly those of his own sex, who seemed to ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... to your string?" As he thus wittily expressed himself, the gentleman took off his cap, and thrust his fingers through a very curling and comely head of hair; the young lady looked at him with evident coquetry, and said, "How you ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 2 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... the first united tug, each person placed carefully by the doctor, and guys for the rope driven at intervals decided by Martin, when there was an interruption for Cherry's arrival on the scene. With characteristic coquetry she did not approach, as the others had, by means of the front porch and the garden path, but crept from the study window into a veritable tunnel of green bloom, and came crawling down it, as sweet and fragrant, as lovely and as fresh, ...
— Sisters • Kathleen Norris
... Interests into which the bourgeoisie is divided—Land and Capital—sought to restore its own supremacy and the subordinacy of the other. We speak of two bourgeois interests because large landed property, despite its feudal coquetry and pride of race, has become completely bourgeois through the development of modern society. Thus did the Tories of England long fancy that they were enthusiastic for the Kingdom, the Church and the ...
— The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte • Karl Marx
... served as a model to the sculptor. Large, sparkling eyes gave animation to her countenance, and took all hearts by storm. Add to these rare endowments a lively though malicious wit, great skill in all showy accomplishments, and especially in the arts of coquetry, and is it wonderful that she was almost worshipped in her father's ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins
... She had observed the peculiar fire which lighted up his eyes in the presence of Ellen Kingsbury, and she bethought her of a plan which would ensure her some amusement at the expense of these impertinent rustics, though in a manner different somewhat from her original more natural idea of simple coquetry. ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... lift her down, with no sign of prudishness or coquetry, and he led the horse uphill while she followed. Her attitude pleased him, because he had no desire for philandering, although he was content to act as protector and guide. Still, while he adapted ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... not a cure; it was merely a temporary drug for our vanity," he rejoined gaily. "It didn't cure me, so you could hardly regard it as a remedy for Mrs. Stribling's complaint. I imagine coquetry is a more obstinate malady even than priggishness, and, Heaven knows, I tried hard enough to get rid ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... dull prolixity the history of his patron, Pierre de Lusignan, King of Cyprus, in his Prise d'Alexandrie; the Voir dit relates in varying verse and prose the course of his sexagenarian love for a maiden in her teens, Peronne d'Armentieres, who gratified her coquetry with an old poet's adoration, and then wedded ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... contrary, the embarrassment which she could not yet wholly subdue lent her an air of girlish timidity. All in all, Barine was a charming creature, who bewitched men by her vivacity, her grace, and her exquisite voice, not by coquetry and pertness. That she possessed unusual mental endowments Cleopatra did not believe. Barine had only one ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in beauty's mould, all elegance and perfect grace; so fair that his comeliness deserved to be proverbial; for he was as a green bough or the tender young of the roe, ravishing every heart with his loveliness and subduing every soul with his coquetry and amorous ways.[FN265] It was of him the poet spake when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... by a life at the North; but the awe of white people in which he had been reared was still too strong to permit his taking any active steps toward the object of his secret desire, had not the lady herself come to his assistance with a little of the native coquetry of her race. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... triple waistcoat, the vast cravat engulfing the chin, the gaiters, the metal buttons on the greenish coat,—all these reminiscences of Imperial fashions were blended with a sort of afterwaft and lingering perfume of the coquetry of the Incroyable—with an indescribable finical something in the folds of the garments, a certain air of stiffness and correctness in the demeanor that smacked of the school of David, that ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... her mysteries. For, if a bad complexion be inexcusable, to be ill-painted is unforgivable; and, when the toilet is laden once more with the fulness of its elaboration, we shall hear no more of the proper occupation for women. And think, how sweet an energy, to sit at the mirror of coquetry! See the dear merits of the toilet as shown upon old vases, or upon the walls of Roman ruins, or, rather still, read Boettiger's alluring, scholarly description of 'Morgenscenen im Puttzimmer Einer Reichen Roemerin.' Read of Sabina's face as she comes through the curtain of her bed-chamber ...
— The Works of Max Beerbohm • Max Beerbohm
... Venus—the beautiful Venus?—the Venus of the Medici?—she of the diminutive head and the gilded hair? Part of the left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty,) and all the right, are restorations; and in the coquetry of that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation. Give me the Canova! The Apollo, too, is a copy—there can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... beautiful figure and shapely shoulders, back, and bosom—which in the fashion of those days were very much exposed—and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as she moved toward Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so lovely that not only did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She seemed to wish, but to be unable, ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... seemed to him that her very dress had a warmer rustle and glimmer, that there emanated from her glance and movements some heady fragrance of a long-past summer. He smiled to think that this phantom coquetry should have risen at the summons of an academic degree; but some deeper sense in him was stirred as by a vision of waste riches adrift on the ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... the invalid. Miss Broadhurst accompanied her mother, for she did not like to go out with any other chaperon—it was disagreeable to spend her time alone at home, and most agreeable to spend it with her friend Miss Nugent. In this she had no design, no coquetry; Miss Broadhurst had too lofty and independent a spirit to stoop to coquetry: she thought that, in their interview at the gala, she understood Lord Colambre, and that he understood her—that he was not inclined to court her for her fortune—that ...
— The Absentee • Maria Edgeworth
... up her apron and filled it with the vivid blooms. The child that had thus brought loaves of bread to a governor's table spread beneath a sugar-tree, with mountains round about, had been no purer of heart, no more innocent of rustic coquetry. When her apron was filled she would have returned to the house, but Haward would not have it so. "They will call when dinner is ready," he said. "I wish to talk to you, little maid. Let us go sit in the shade of the ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... impression I have of my life at Vienna is melancholy. Goethe has said, that in youth we cannot be happy unless we love. I did not love; but I was devoured by a restless wish to be something to others. I became the victim of ingratitude and cold coquetry—then I desponded, and imagined that my discontent gave me a right to hate the world. I receded to solitude; I had recourse to my books, and my desire again to enjoy the society of Adrian became ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... a certain literary coquetry may be permissible to retailers of the marvelous, the sober chronicler is bound to forego such advantage as he may reap from an odd-sounding name, on which many ephemeral successes are founded in these days. Wherefore ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... surely see through this obvious patter; but I had under-estimated the average human capacity for swallowing flattery. Instead of dismissing his fulsome nonsense with a contemptuous smile, Lady Georgina perked herself up with a conscious air of coquetry, and asked for more. 'Yes, they were delightful days in Vienna,' she said, simpering; 'I was young then, Count; I enjoyed life with ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... like the music in the house, they seemed strangely far away. The stirring of the wind made the sudden damp on his forehead icy-cold. Margaret's hands slowly left her face, which had changed as by a miracle. Every trace of coquetry was gone. It was the face of a woman who knew her own heart, and had the sweet frankness to speak it, that was lifted ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... either of coquetry, tears, flatteries, or promises of enduring love, remained untried to induce Bonaparte to take the decisive step. Sometimes Pauline would pout; sometimes her eyes shed the tears of repentance over her own faithlessness, and she vowed she would take refuge in a cloister if Bonaparte ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... impersonal as force itself, Felice had once, by some mysterious feminine art, addressed, in all innocence, her little maneuver of fascination. One lift of the steady eyelid, one quiet glint of that terrible cold gray eye, that poniarded her every tissue of complexity, inconsistency, and coquetry, had been enough. Felice had fled the field from this young fellow, so much her junior, and then afterward, in a tremor of discomfiture and distress, had kept ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris
... will, having precluded all advances on your part. The declaration, without the most indirect invitation of yours, must proceed from the man, to render it permanent and valuable; and nothing short of good sense and an easy, unaffected conduct, can draw the line between prudery and coquetry. It would be no great departure from truth to say that it rarely happens otherwise than that a thorough-paced coquette dies in celibacy, as a punishment for her attempts to mislead others, by encouraging looks, words, or actions, given for no other purpose than to draw men on to make ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... pride of my sex; I can bear being told I am in the wrong, but tell it me gently. Perhaps I have been indiscreet; I came young into the hurry of the world; a great innocence and an undesigning gaiety may possibly have been construed coquetry and a desire of being followed, though never meant by me. I cannot answer for the [reflections] that may be made on me: all who are malicious attack the careless and defenceless: I own myself to ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... of her manner towards him. Simplicity verges on coquetry. Was she flirting? he said to himself. No forcible translation of favour into suspicion was able to uphold such a theory. The performance had been too well done to be anything but real. It had the defects without which nothing is genuine. ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... for the second time in his life. He met, saw, and was conquered by Elizabeth Newton, the daughter of a wheelwright, at Ashton, a small hamlet close to Helpston. She was but a plain girl, but possessed of all the arts of coquetry; and though John Clare did not care much for her at first, she gradually entangled him into fervent affection, or what he held to be such. It was not Platonic love, by any means, like that for sweet Mary Joyce; and less so on the part ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... after our arrival, and found the rites homely and naked, very much like those of our own Presbyterians. There was a luxury about this building that you would hardly expect to meet among a people so simple, which quite puts the coquetry of our own carpeted, cushioned, closet-like places of worship to shame. This is the summer church of Vevey, another being used for winter. This surpasses the refinement of the Roman ladies, who had their summer ...
— A Residence in France - With An Excursion Up The Rhine, And A Second Visit To Switzerland • J. Fenimore Cooper
... there is but one of them," explained the countess to the abbe when he questioned her. That answer showed the priest her total want of coquetry. Laurence did not conceive that she was loved by ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... tragedy occurred there are seven rocks, visible only on rare occasions when the river is very low, and till lately it was a popular superstition that these rocks were placed there by Providence, anxious to impart a moral to young women addicted to coquetry and practical jests. To this day many boatmen on the Rhine regard these rocks with awe, and it is told that now and then seven wraiths are to be seen there; it is even asserted that sometimes these apparitions sing in strains as delectable as ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... Gallery, next day, she was not late by coquetry, but because she had changed her dress at the last minute, and because she was afraid of letting him think her eager. She saw him at once standing under the colonnade, looking by no means imperturbable, and marked the change in his face when he caught sight of her, with a little thrill. She ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... that I had almost forgotten this latter creature, the automaton. Apparently she had, too, for at first a puzzled look came to her eyes, then she smiled up at me with a bit of her own individual coquetry. ...
— The Blue Wall - A Story of Strangeness and Struggle • Richard Washburn Child
... the brazen creature tap Davidge's elbow and smile, putting out her hand with coquetry. She saw her debarrass herself of her companion, a French officer whose exquisite horizon-blue uniform was amazingly crossed with the wound and service chevrons of three years' warfaring. Nevertheless, Lady Clifton-Wyatt dropped him for the civilian Davidge. Mamise, flitting ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... the putting-up of some thick blond locks that had escaped, and the rolling-up of her sleeves over a pair of strong, rounded arms, Rand lingered near her. All trace of the "Pet's" previous professional coquetry was gone,—perhaps it was only replaced by a more natural one; but as she looked up, and caught sight of Rand's interested face, she laughed again, and colored a little. Slight as was the blush, it was sufficient to kindle a sympathetic fire in Rand's own cheeks, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... nostrils, as I held the braid. Who could the woman be who brought that costly fragrance into a deserted farmhouse? For so exquisite and unique a fragrance could only be the work of a master perfumer. There was youth in that vigorous hair, coquetry in the individual perfume, panic in her useless sacrifice of the braid I held; yet strangest self-possession in the telling of that fanciful tale of sorcery ...
— The Thing from the Lake • Eleanor M. Ingram
... experiment on Dutch paper. But the lady said she did not know how that might be, and she went on toasting the experiment. In all this there is a fine contempt for everything but the spiritual aspect of literature; there is an aversion to the mere coquetry and display of morocco and red letters, and the toys which amuse the minds of men. Where ladies have caught "the Bibliomania," I fancy they have taken this pretty fever from the other sex. But it ...
— Books and Bookmen • Andrew Lang
... was blackened. Nor is the extravagance of the methods, which the militant lady follows to put over her program, so foreign to her nature as it may seem. The suffragette adapts to her needs a form of feminine coquetry as old as the world. To defy and denounce the male has always been one of woman's most successful ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... distinguished by her air of high supremacy, than by her beauty. She sat loftily in a lofty phaeton, which was emblazoned with arms, and covered with coronets; and she played with her long whip, as ladies of old managed their fans, with grace and coquetry. She was dressed in a rich habit, whose facings and epaulettes spoke her the lady of the noble colonel of some provincial corps of volunteers. A high military cap, surmounted with a plume of black feathers, well became her bright, bold, black eyes, and her brow that looked as ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, - Issue 284, November 24, 1827 • Various
... of this ornamentation, and displayed much coquetry in attracting our notice to it. Wealthier women in Tibet have quite a small fortune hanging down their backs, for all the money or valuables earned or saved are sewn on to the Tchukti. To the lower end of the Tchukti one, two or three rows of small brass or silver bells are attached, ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... whispering at their expense. Dolly had never known the sensation of being a wallflower, and for the first time her natural wit deserted her. At first she had deployed all the instinctive arts of her challenged coquetry. She had openly flaunted her affection for Skippy, smiling into his fascinated eyes, laughing uproariously at the inanities he had to offer. Then her spirits suddenly evaporated and she listened with a cold creepy feeling in her back, while Skippy, in desperation for a topic ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... either the habit or the power of analyzing her own sensations,—even if she had seen her soul from without, as she certainly did not within,—she would have recoiled from the thought of deliberate coquetry. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., February, 1863, No. LXIV. • Various
... if thinking. "Do you want me to call him in?" she said quietly, but without the least trace of archness or coquetry. "Would you rather he were here—or shall we go out now and meet him? I'll say you just came as I was ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... the Toomeys. While Hugh did not resent it or defend Kate, he did not join in their ridicule of her. She was "green," he could not deny that, yet not in the sense the Toomeys meant. Naive, ingenuous, he felt were better words. She knew nothing of social usages, and she was without a suspicion of the coquetry that he looked for in girls before they had begun to do up their hair. She spoke with startling frankness upon subjects which he had been taught were taboo. He admired and was accustomed to soft, helpless, clinging femininity, and it grated upon him to ...
— The Fighting Shepherdess • Caroline Lockhart
... than a suspicion that he had led her on to say these very words. And in admitting that she cared to have the conversation proceed upon this footing, she realised that she was sheering towards unequivocal coquetry. She saw the false move now, knew that she had lowered her guard. On all accounts it would have been more dignified to have shown only a mild interest in what Corthell wished. She realised that once more she had acted ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... might never have been dreamed of in the studio of the painter, but is not unworthy of the boudoir of the belle. It is the young Englishwomen at Vienna who, if we may believe Eugene Chapus, have taken the initiative in this new refinement of coquetry, which employs not only a greater variety and quantity of perfume than in previous years, but employs it according to a certain scientific system. At balls, perfumes are especially de rigueur, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... is it in the right place?" and she looked at him with a glance exhibiting the most curious commingling of naivete and coquetry. ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... inflame the passion it was meant to chill. The favors of the marchioness had hitherto been sought with avidity, and accepted with rapture; and the repulsive insensibility which she now experienced, roused all her pride, and called into action every refinement of coquetry. ...
— A Sicilian Romance • Ann Radcliffe
... she had just used to her cousin now addressed to herself, she turned upon him a look of love, her first look of loving womanhood,—a glance in which there is nearly as much of coquetry as of inmost depth. He took her hand ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac
... entitled, if he could, to win Junia for himself, to the mind of Denzil the stain of his brother's past was on Tarboe's life. He saw Tarboe and Junia meet; he knew Tarboe put himself in her way, and he was right in thinking that the girl, with a mind for comedy and coquetry, was drawn instinctively ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... letter proved that Randolph had intruded on her acquaintance, and she had objected from coyness or coquetry; and that when he persisted, she was so enraged that she flew into a passion and wilfully ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... animating his wife, annoyed her; his protestations wearied her; his vows gave her the headache; and his caresses were a colic that made her blood run cold. Of course, the prince perceived nothing, being lost in wonder and admiration of the beauty's coyness and coquetry. And as women must give away their hearts, whether asked or not, so the lovely Dangalah Rani lost no time in lavishing all the passion of her idle soul upon Mahi-pala, the handsome ambassador of peace and war. By this means the three were happy and were ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... occupied this stately figure, in what way ideas circulated in her kerchiefed head, we are left to divine. Her conduct is a little enigmatical. Had she any thought of marrying Olenin, or were her actions dictated by coquetry accompanied by a spice of mischief? We are inclined ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... perhaps it was better for their reputation with their neighbors that they had not been BEHOLDEN to the "No'th." Seeing a cloud pass over Courtland's face, the young lady added with an affected sigh, and the first touch of feminine coquetry which had invaded their ...
— Sally Dows and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... dancing-master, she is almost the last of a school that nursed but the single aim of subjugating man. To-night, at seventy-something, she is a bit of pink bisque fragility, bubbling tirelessly with reminiscence, her vivacity unimpaired, her energy amazing, and her coquetry faultless. From which we should learn, and be grateful therefor, that when a girl is brought up in the way she ought to go she will never be able to depart ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... replied Dr. Leete. "There is no more pretense of a concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers. Coquetry would be as much despised in a girl as in a man. Affected coldness, which in your day rarely deceived a lover, would deceive him wholly now, for no one ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... England might, with equal justice, draw the characters of the women there, from those which he might meet with on board the ships in one of the naval ports, or in the purlieus of Covent-Garden and Drury-Lane. I must however allow, that they are all completely versed in the art of coquetry, and that very few of them fix any bounds to their conversation. It is therefore no wonder that they have obtained ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... laugh is silvery. She points to a gay mountaineer, who is tripping up to her merrily. Why does Glyndon feel jealous? Why, when she speaks again, does he shake his head no more? He offers his hand; Fillide blushes, and takes it with a demure coquetry. What! is it so, indeed! They whirl into the noisy circle of the revellers. Ha! ha! is not this better than distilling herbs, and breaking thy brains on Pythagorean numbers? How lightly Fillide bounds along! How her lithesome waist supples itself ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... out his reply through his teeth. "God has given you women a plentiful supply of coquetry to start with, and on the top of that you have the milliner and the jeweller to help you; but do not think we men are ...
— The Home and the World • Rabindranath Tagore
... you let me send my coach for you? Mr. Soame Jenyns has been dying with impatience; some of us thought you would not come; others thought it only coquetry; but come, let us repair the time as we can, and introduce you to ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... conservatories and in back drawing-rooms, in lobbies while she waited for her carriage—had looked at her piteously with tenderest declarations trembling on their lips; but she had contrived to keep them at bay, to strike them dumb by her coldness, or confound them by her coquetry; for all these were ineligibles, whom Lady Lesbia Haselden did not want to ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... Cicero and prove the right of my cause, and I will be your Caesar and carry it through," Frederick wrote to Jordan after the invasion of Silesia. Gaily, with light step as if going to a dance, the King entered upon the fields of his victories. There was still cheerful enjoyment of life, sweet coquetry with verse, and intellectual conversation with his intimates on the pleasures of the day, on God, nature, and immortality, which he considered the spice of life. But the great task upon which he had entered began to have its effect upon his soul even in the early weeks, even ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... her in astonishment. There was not the slightest trace of coyness, coquetry, or even raillery in her clear, honest eyes, and yet it would seem as if she had taken his proposition in its fullest sense as a matrimonial declaration, and actually referred him to her father. He was pleased, ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... a rebuff, and Rita's coquetry deserted her, leaving her mortified and piqued. She stared at ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... the dilemma; she had not written either out of coquetry or because she did not really care for him. If the former were the true reason, she was cruel; if the latter, she ought to tell him so at once, and he would try to master himself. On no hypothesis was she justified in leaving him without a word. Tortured alternately by fear, ...
— Elder Conklin and Other Stories • Frank Harris
... in a provincial town, under the shelter of her own native purity and innocence, no such idea could find countenance. Even the thought which sometimes dimly presented itself, that by some harmless coquetry she might perhaps excite her husband's jealousy, and thereby chance to win back his love, was one which she always stifled in its beginning as weak ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... my folly of uncovering, nor venture by even so much as too long a look to manifest an interest in her; yet my heart was beating audibly. I trembled and consciously colored as she turned her big black eyes upon me with a look of obvious recognition entirely devoid of boldness or coquetry. ...
— Can Such Things Be? • Ambrose Bierce
... difficult a problem as that," she said, with a slight toss of the head, a bit of antique coquetry which impressed him with a new sense of her thorough self-possession, and imposed itself upon his untrained mind as the air of a true woman of the world; "I fancy I can solve. Leave him to me. I'll find out what can be done ...
— The Philistines • Arlo Bates
... only seven years old? Did I not remember how I would pass her house on my way to school, and stand at the gate and whistle until she came shyly out, with her face as red as her little hood and tippet, and give me her books to carry, and protest with the ever present coquetry of girlhood that she thought I had gone long ago? Could I ever forget how I saved my coppers, one by one, until I had accumulated a sum large enough to buy a whole cocoanut, which I presented to her in the proudest moment ...
— The Romance of an Old Fool • Roswell Field
... strained, but most of them contain a capital hit and are usually founded on the facts. It is a well authenticated fact that the beaver has but one mate; and, that they live together a loving couple, as if husband and wife. As to their liaisons, coquetry, flirting and so forth, doubtless the society in some parts of the human family will bear a faithful resemblance in these respects also. As an example of industry the world will look in vain for a better one than is afforded by the little beaver of the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... look at your poor girls, many of them fading around you, dropping off in consumption or decline; or, what is worse, degenerating to sour old maids—envious, back-biting, wretched, because life is a desert to them; or, what is worst of all, reduced to strive, by scarce modest coquetry and debasing artifice, to gain that position and consideration by marriage which to celibacy is denied. Fathers! cannot you alter these things? Perhaps not all at once; but consider the matter well when it is brought before you, receive ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... vicinity of Forbes Gurney. Why, she could scarcely say. It was not coquetry. She just drew near, talked to him of stage work and her plays and her ambitions. She sketched him as she had Cowperwood and others, and one day Cowperwood found three studies of Forbes Gurney in her note-book idyllicly done, a note ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... and shall have all you ask," said I, giving him the letter. "It is the language of the heart, and of a heart strongly attached to you. I can see affection in every line of it. Of course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there ever a pretty woman, who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem: never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 • Various
... young, you promised to have power by your charms, renewing those she had never forgotten in her lost Iza. No one consulted the Almanack de Gotha when you were launched on an admiring society as one of the Vieradlers. You soon won a great reputation for freshness of wit and coquetry in all South Germany. In plain words, you could not see a man come into the drawing-room without wishing to make him fall in love with you. We want to monopolize genius—you to monopolize the love of man. You ...
— The Son of Clemenceau • Alexandre (fils) Dumas
... elevated Fanny to the rank of wife, and what terrors he was in respecting the arrival of his father. He described the scene with considerable humour, taking care to dwell especially upon that part of it which concerned Fanny's coquetry and irrepressible desire of captivating mankind; his meaning being, "You see, Laura, I was not so guilty in that little affair; it was the girl who made love to me, and I who resisted. As I am no longer present, the little siren practises ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... looked beautiful in her glittering accoutrements, set off by her jet-black shining coat. With an air of demure abstraction she permitted me to mount her, and even for a hundred yards or so indulged in a mincing maidenly amble that was not without a touch of coquetry. Encouraged by this, I addressed a few terms of endearment to her, and in the exuberance of my youthful enthusiasm I even confided to her my love for Consuelo and begged her to be "good" and not ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... persons of her rank, suffering is one of the greatest virtues. People were apt to fancy that she was patient to a degree of indolence. In a word, they expected wonders from her; and Bautru used to say she had already worked a miracle because the most devout had forgotten her coquetry. The Duc d'Orleans, who made a show as if he would have disputed the Regency with the Queen, was contented to be Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. The Prince de Conde was declared President of the Council, and the Parliament ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... so irresistibly innocent in the boy's serious, wondering tone as he said these words that a smile, in spite of herself, broke out amongst the thousand dimples round Helen's charming lips. Perhaps the little witch felt a touch of coquetry for the first time. ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... trace of her mission; usually with no child in her arms or even in sight; a mere figurine, calculated perhaps to entice, but not to bear; incidentally degrading the artist who depicts her to a fashion-plate painter, perhaps with suggestions of the arts of toilet, cosmetics, and coquetry, as if to promote decadent reaction to decadent stimuli. As in the Munchausen tale, the wolf slowly ate the running nag from behind until he found himself in the harness, so in the disoriented woman the mistress, virtuous ...
— Youth: Its Education, Regimen, and Hygiene • G. Stanley Hall
... The child had no coquetry in her nature, else would have noticed the earnest look in the boy's brown eyes that accompanied his significantly spoken words. As it was, ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea
... of his weather-beaten domino, always, he just displays, with a sort of tragic coquetry, the toe of a stout and serviceable marble boot. And this, I have begun to believe, is all that I shall ever see of him. Else might I not be writing about him; for else had he not so haunted me. If I knew ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... indeed, we could expect nothing else from a cento of Lucan's hyperbolical antitheses. These bravuras of rhetoric are strung together on the thread of a clumsy plot. The intrigues of Ptolemy, and the ambitious coquetry of his sister Cleopatra, have a petty and miserable appearance alongside of the picture of the fate of the great Pompey, the vengeance-breathing sorrow of his wife, and the magnanimous compassion of Caesar. Scarcely has the conqueror paid the last honours to the reluctant shade of ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... so much discernment, that I should think she could not be easily deceived. If my kinswoman knows your views, I should say that you have reason to be encouraged by her manner. There is nothing like coquetry about her; I am convinced she thinks ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... this effect was the result of the Spanish mode rather than of individual sophistication; just as the succession of lazy poses and bendings were the result of a racial feminine instinct rather than of conscious personal coquetry. Certainly we four red-shirted tramps were poor enough game. Nevertheless, whatever the motive, the effect was certainly real enough. She was alluring rather than charming, with her fan and her rebosa, her veiled glances, her languorous, bold poses, and the single red flower in ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... without her inevitable Dormilly!'—And the Viscount, as he spoke, pointed towards a tall and slender young woman, who, gliding rather than walking, met the ladies by whom she passed, with a graceful and modest salute, and replied to the looks of the men BY BRILLIANT VEILED GLANCES FULL OF COQUETRY ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Marquis d'Esgrignon, General Montriveau, the Marquis de Ronquerolles and d'Ajuda-Pinto, Prince Galathionne, the young Ducs de Grandlieu and de Rhetore, the Vicomte de Serizy, and the handsome Lucien de Rubempre, had all been treated with the utmost coquetry of brush and pencil by celebrated artists. As the princess now received only two or three of these personages, she called the book, jokingly, the ...
— The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan • Honore de Balzac
... (Auto. p. 462) says:—'She did not take at Edinburgh. Lord Kames, who was at first catched with her Parnassian coquetry, said at last that he believed she had as much learning as a well-educated college lad here of sixteen. In genuine feelings and deeds she was remarkably deficient. We saw her often in the neighbourhood of Newcastle, and in that ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... most commonly to be found in a French comedy; lively and playful, yet elegant and graceful; entering with ardour into amusements, yet capable of deep feeling and serious reflection: fond of admiration and flattery, yet innocent and modest; full of petty artifice and coquetry, yet natural and unaffected in affairs of importance; capricious and giddy in appearance, but warm-hearted and affectionate in reality. It is a character to which there is a kind of approximation among many French women; and if it were as well supported by them in real ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... Who knows thy favour'd haunts to name? Whether at Paris you prepare The supper and the chat to share, While fix'd in artificial row, Laughter displays its teeth of snow: Grimace with raillery rejoices, And song of many mingled voices, Till young coquetry's artful wile Some foreign novice shall beguile, Who home return'd, still prates of thee, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... already been made to her whole relations, from first to last, with Ladislaw. It is not easy to conceive anything more touchingly beautiful than these, more perfectly in harmony with her whole nature. Of anything approaching either coquetry or prudery she is incapable. The utter absence of all self-consciousness, whether of external beauty or inward loveliness; the ethereal purity, the childlike trustfulness, the instinctive recognition of all that is true and earnest and high in Ladislaw, ...
— The Ethics of George Eliot's Works • John Crombie Brown
... ebony;—where could Drowne, in his sober walk of life, have beheld the vision here so matchlessly embodied! And then her face! In the dark eyes, and around the voluptuous mouth, there played a look made up of pride, coquetry, and a gleam of mirthfulness, which impressed Copley with the idea that the image was secretly enjoying the perplexing admiration ...
— Mosses from an Old Manse and Other Stories • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... While this coquetry or shyness is exhibited by John Shark, the whole after-part of the ship is so clustered with heads that not an inch of spare room is to be had for love or money. The rigging, the mizen-top, and even the gaff, out ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... you not beheld a thin-veiled mockery in her look? Why, poor fool, has she not mocked you from the first? You dream of her lips. Were not their smiles but coquetry and derision? ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... The eyes of this woman magnetized him in the same way. The words she caught in regard to leaving France struck a chill to her heart. A funereal gloom settled over the room. Additional dismay overwhelmed her as D'Argenton wound up with a vigorous tirade against French women,—their lightness and coquetry, the insincerity of their smiles, and the venality of ...
— Jack - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... at once primitive and serious. Women are disposed to follow the noble dream called duty. "Thus, supported by innocence and conscience, they introduce into love a profound and upright sentiment, abjure coquetry, vanity, and flirtation; they do not lie, they are not affected. When they love they are not tasting a forbidden fruit, but are binding themselves for their whole life. Thus understood, love becomes almost a holy thing; the spectator no longer wishes to be malicious ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... among her guests; her tall, slender form, so full of dignity, she was the "observed of all observers." Her winning smile, so dangerous to those gallants in attendance who had never realized the true sense of coquetry, was unusually fascinating, and every one who had been honored by Miss Winnie's notice, pronounced her decidedly the belle of the season; but as they turned to the gentle creature at her side, their thoughts gradually assumed a different ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale
... object of her wishes. She had finally reached it by bribery and intrigue, by hypocritical tenderness, by the resignation of her maiden modesty and womanly honor, and by all the arts of coquetry. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... generally in the absence, not in the presence, of the beloved object. For otherwise we might possibly complain of their ingratitude and deafness, with the same reason as Pasiphae doth of her bull, whom she endeavoured to engage by all the coquetry practised with good success in the drawing-room on the much more sensible as well as tender hearts of ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... on every occasion; and the amiable Josephine, whose only fault was being too much of the woman, was continually tormented by sad presentiments. Carried away by the easiness of her character, she did not perceive that the coquetry which enlisted for her so many defenders also supplied her implacable enemies with ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... do," responded Miss Nellie, without the least trace of coquetry. "Is the wedding or the hanging to take place first, or together, so ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... every possible and impossible factory. Unpractical and reserved as she was on ordinary occasions, she could be full of artifice and coquetry whenever she wished to gain access to a steam bakery and particular as she generally was about her toilette, she would come away again sooty and grimy if thereby she could procure for Rafael some insight into mechanics. She shrank from foul air as from ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the means to regain that proud heart," said Count Mantcuffel, shrugging his shoulders. "With tears and languishing she will lose her influence, and only gain contempt. You who are the mistress of love and coquetry should understand that, and instruct your beautiful pupil. Now, however, comes the most important question. What of the marriage of the Prince ...
— Frederick the Great and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... and I chose—very well, too. Then my second marriage: it was even then not the same thing. People had commented on the singular death of my first husband, and suitors had already begun to reflect before declaring themselves. However, as I am not stupid, thanks to determination, cajolery and coquetry, I succeeded in getting a second husband. Alas! it was not without trouble. But the third. Oh, you have no idea all the trouble I had; truly I was ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... face. She read condemnation in both pairs of eyes. For the first time in her life she felt daunted, humiliated. She knew nothing more beyond the fact that in deliberate coquetry she had pitted brother against brother, and that something cruel and tragical had happened for which she was being judged. Neither spoke. She summoned her outer dignity, tossed her pretty head, and went out by the end ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... where yesterday they dashed in pieces the ship that was black with men, women, and children. But what shall we say of those billows of human life, of which we are ourselves a part, that surge over the graves of its own dead with dances and laughter and many a coquetry, with panting chase for gain and preference, and pious regrets and tender condolences for the thousands that died yesterday—and ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... superfluity—a private half-sovereign lay in the inmost compartment of her purse; this coin was destined to recompense Mr. Cannon. Her free hand went up to the heavy chignon that hung uncertainly beneath her bonnet—a gesture of coquetry which she ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... answer. And why had she not volunteered the assurance he wanted so eagerly and dared not ask for? The beastly answer to that question was that she had enjoyed the thrill of his uncertainty—a miserable sort of feline coquetry. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... with a woman's sweet and placid dignity of love, never failing, never tiring, yet invisible as a rivulet that runs through deep green bushes, scarcely heard and never seen. Sybilla's arts—the only arts she knew—were the whole armoury of girlish coquetry, or childish wile, passionate tenderness and angry or sullen reproach, alternating each other. Her husband was equally unmoved by all. He seemed a very rock, indifferent to either sunshine or storm. And yet it was not so. He had in his nature deep, earnest, abiding tenderness; but he ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... pleasant vices of the age, yet not of them, was Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), the melancholy youth from French Flanders, who began by painting St. Nicholases at three francs a week and his board, but who soon invented a new manner and became famous as the Peintre des Scenes Galantes. These scenes of coquetry, frivolity and amorous dalliance, with their patched, powdered and scented ladies and gallants, toying with life in a land where, like that of the Lotus Eaters, it seems always afternoon, he clothes with a refined and delicate ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... corresponded no longer to my imaginary picture of her. When we met in the dance she pressed my hand, which made me indignant, as though it were an immodest thing. She was no longer a fairy. She had broad shoulders, a budding bust, warm hands; there was youthful coquetry about her—something that, to me, seemed like erotic experience. I soon lost sight of her. But I retained a sentiment of gratitude towards her for what, as a ten-year-old child, she had afforded me, this naturally supernatural impression, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... shared her husband's voyaging, kept the ship's accounts, was known to all on board as "The Bos'un," and when battened under hatches in foul weather spent her time in trimming the most wonderful bonnets. Her coquetry stopped short at bonnets. To-day indeed—the weather being warm—in lieu of bodice she had slipped on a grey ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... show of Kohl and coquetry! * By what thy shape displays of lissome symmetry! By what thy liplets store of honey dew and wine! * By what thy mind adorns of gracious kindly gree! To me thy sight dream-visioned, O my hope! exceeds * The happiest ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... several years, had danced with her on many a feast day, and never lost an opportunity to whisper the old, old story in her willing ear. Others had done the like, but the dark-eyed senorita is an adept in the art of coquetry, and there you are. But Enrique swore a great oath he would know. Yes, he would. He would lay siege to her as he had never done before. He would become un oso grande. Just wait until the branding was over and the fiestas of ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... attempted severity she could not keep the twinkle out of her own pupils. If she had not succeeded in driving Halloway away, why should she stand out for the subterfuge of banishing Jerry? It reminded her of Joe's picking an easy man to whip. There was even a faint challenge of coquetry in her manner as she disdainfully announced: "Ef thet's ther way I'm feedin' yore vanity, come over whenever ye feels like hit. I'll strive ter endure ye, ef ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... gentle with him! No scorn, no offended dignity, no displeasure even. She, who could punish insolence with anybody, was never hard upon the humble admirer—only too soft, in fact, with all her basic firmness, and incapable of the hard-hearted coquetry that so commonly makes beauty vile. "Face of waxen angel, with paw of desert ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... felt like lashing herself for having felt like that and for having replied, in a spirit of pure coquetry, in a voice of studied, cool, indifferent ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... to help you all I can." They were walking down the hall, and he was bending over her with an air of devotion which she thought very pleasant. His accomplished eyes appealed to the instinct of coquetry, buried deep in the seriousness of her nature, and she smiled upon him and found herself talking with ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... which he was labouring. "Do you love me? You have acknowledged it now and then, but always as if you did not mean it. Now you acknowledge that you may some day, and this time as if you did mean it. What is the truth? Tell me, without coquetry or dissembling, for I am in dead earnest, and—-" He paused, choked, and turned toward the window where but a few minutes before he had taken that solemn oath. The remembrance of it seemed to come back with the movement. Flushing with a new agitation, he wheeled upon her sharply. "No, no," he prayed, ...
— Agatha Webb • Anna Katharine Green
... more easy as time went on, for Mr. and Mrs. La Branche took it for granted that he was their cousin's affianced lover; and while the girl herself now bewildered him with her shy, inviting coquetry, or again berated him for placing her in an unwelcome position, he could never determine ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... woman's soul—saw petty artifice and mere negation where I had delighted to believe in coy sensibilities and in wit at war with latent feeling—saw the light floating vanities of the girl defining themselves into the systematic coquetry, the scheming selfishness, of the woman—saw repulsion and antipathy harden into cruel hatred, giving pain only for the sake of ...
— The Lifted Veil • George Eliot
... find a use for it one day. If I do—Well," said madame, drawing a breath and nodding her head with a stern kind of coquetry, "I'll ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... entered the room, however, instinct decided for her that any approach to coquetry would be a mistake, if she sought to make a good impression at the beginning. It was with an air of amiable candor, then, that she said, "Monsieur desire to speak with me?" She added helpfully, "I am ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... modesty, the same was not true of the New Zealanders, and Cook gives a curious example of this fact. Although not so clean as the natives of Tahiti, whose climate is much warmer, and although they bathed less often, they took a pride in their persons, and showed a certain coquetry. For instance, they greased their hair with an oil or fat obtained from fishes or birds, which becoming rank after awhile, made them as disagreeable to a refined sense ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... traces of their manner being evident in her work. She renders the best type of feminine seductiveness with delicacy and grace; she avoids the trivial and gross, but pictures all the allurements of an innocent coquetry. ...
— Women in the fine arts, from the Seventh Century B.C. to the Twentieth Century A.D. • Clara Erskine Clement
... rattled into a tin basin. She wore an old skirt, torn and shabby; her bodice was split under the arms, showing the white lining. Her hair lay flat on her forehead, screwed tightly in curling-pins, which brought into relief her fiat face and high cheekbones, for she was no beauty. By a singular coquetry, she wore her best shoes, small and neat, with high ...
— Jonah • Louis Stone
... let him be responsible, to let him control the irresponsibility within her, the unwisdom, the delicate audacity, latent, mischievous, that needed a reversal of the role of protector and protected to blossom deliciously into the coquetry that ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... she disregarded the discipline of his house, and grumbled at times over foreign ways and habits that he had no fancy to see under his roof. When she did appear, however, her winning manners, her grace, and a certain half-caressing coquetry she could practise to perfection, so soothed and amused him that he soon forgot any momentary displeasure, and more than once gave up his evening visit to the club at Moate to listen to her as she sang, or hear her sketch off ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... Dr. Leete. "There is no more pretense of a concealment of feeling on their part than on the part of their lovers. Coquetry would be as much despised in a girl as in a man. Affected coldness, which in your day rarely deceived a lover, would deceive him wholly now, for no ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... chief resource was in her own high spirit, Which judged mankind at their due estimation; And for coquetry, she disdain'd to wear it: Secure of admiration, its impression Was faint, as of ...
— What Great Men Have Said About Women - Ten Cent Pocket Series No. 77 • Various
... waste of herself to be dressed thus while another was shining to advantage! Had she known the full effect of the encounter she would have moved heaven and earth to get here in a natural manner. The power of her face all lost, the charm of her emotions all disguised, the fascinations of her coquetry denied existence, nothing but a voice left to her; she had a sense of the doom of Echo. "Nobody here respects me," she said. She had overlooked the fact that, in coming as a boy among other boys, she would ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... by sin, not to turn away His countenance in wrath from our unhappy country. Even here, at the seat of my cousin, the Marchioness K———de C———, where I am at the present moment, I can discover nothing but frivolity among the men, and dangerous coquetry among the women. The pernicious atmosphere of the period seems to pervade even the highest rank of the French aristocracy. Sometimes discussions occur on matters pertaining to science and morals, which aim a kind of indirect blow ...
— Monsieur, Madame and Bebe, Complete • Gustave Droz
... There was no tantalizing coquetry in Zany's manner now. In a moment she was in Chunk's arms sobbing, "Tek me way off fum dis place. I go wid you now, dis berry minute, en I neber breve easy till we way, way off enywhar, I doan keer whar. Oh, Chunk, you doan know w'at been gwine ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... usual pride of my sex; I can bear being told I am in the wrong, but tell it me gently. Perhaps I have been indiscreet; I came young into the hurry of the world; a great innocence and an undesigning gaiety may possibly have been construed coquetry and a desire of being followed, though never meant by me. I cannot answer for the [reflections] that may be made on me: all who are malicious attack the careless and defenceless: I own myself to be both. I not anything I can say more to shew my perfect desire ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... has so many centimeters of talent for salesmanship. Nor can we, using the method of the chemist, apply the litmus to his stream of consciousness and get his psychical reaction in a demonstrable way. We are glad we cannot, else humanity might lose the fine arts of coquetry and conquest. Perhaps we never shall be able to do these things, but that is small cause for discouragement. What we do claim for the science of character analysis is that it is classified knowledge based upon ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... unaffected; a good mother, sister, daughter; hard-working and frugal, if she be of the lower class; fond above all things of gossip, and of what passes for conversation; light-hearted, full of fun and harmless mischief; born a coquette, but only with that kind of coquetry which is inseparable from unspoiled sex, with no taint of sordidness about it; and, before all things, absolutely free from affectation. Their own expression, muy simpatica, gives better than any other the charm ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... opportunity. It chanced that one afternoon, being in the residential quarter, he noticed a well-dressed young girl walking before him in company with a delicate looking boy of seven or eight years. Something in the carriage of her graceful figure, something in a certain consciousness and ostentation of coquetry toward her youthful escort, attracted his attention. Yet it struck him that she was neither related to the child nor accustomed to children's ways, and that she somewhat unduly emphasized this to the passers-by, particularly those of his own sex, who seemed to be greatly attracted by her ...
— Trent's Trust and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... their magnificent black hair, twined around their charming faces, a graceful carriage, truly antique, their picturesque costume, partaking of the characters of both modern Greece and Italy, form the most admirable and pleasant combination. The women of Ceprano display, also, a peculiar coquetry, by their graceful and bold air; they carry on their heads etruscan amphorae, in which, like Rachel, they bring water from the spring. At the fountain, therefore, strangers assemble to admire these nymphs. The traveller of whom we speak had gone thither, according to the well established ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... two or more miles across the fields to church, knowing full well that some one will be lounging about a certain stile, or lying on the sward by a gate waiting for her. The practice of coquetry is as delightful in the country lane as in the saloons of wealth, though the ways in which it exhibits itself may be rude in comparison. So that love is sometimes the detaining force which keeps the girl in the country. Some of the young labourers are almost ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies
... young girl was. From the close braids of her brown hair to the tips of her bronze shoes she was womanly grace and refinement personified. There was a cordial frankness in her tone and eyes that attracted him, and put him at his ease. Yet there was no hint of coquetry. He liked her at once and instinctively, because somehow she seemed to meet him on a manly plane of good-fellowship—and yet she was so thoroughly and deliciously feminine. There was just a bit of a drawl in her ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... turning a little away, so that she could pretend not to know that he was looking at her, raised her arm to smooth her hair, lifting it and pushing a loosened hairpin into place. After all . . . This was Isabel's first venture into coquetry. But it ...
— Nightfall • Anthony Pryde
... salute to us all, and, glancing at me with a spice of coquetry, to which she was evidently not unaccustomed, was pleased to observe, that I was ...
— The Ghost Ship - A Mystery of the Sea • John C. Hutcheson
... effects of habitual suffering, she justifies exactly her husband's expression: "She is a breath, a breath that exhales intelligence and good-nature!" Not a shadow of any pretension unbecoming her age, an exquisite care of her person without the faintest trace of coquetry, a complete oblivion of her departed youth, a sort of bashfulness at being old, and a touching desire, not to please, but to be forgiven; such is my adorable marquise. She has traveled much, read much, and knows Paris well. I roamed with her through ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... an hour, but the Captain would not listen to reason. He carried his coquetry so far that, although I had covered the empty orbit with black silk, he had his shutters closed whenever visitors came; so that, as they always found him in the dark, none would credit his cure. I was very anxious to thwart Don ...
— Adventures in the Philippine Islands • Paul P. de La Gironiere
... her eyes cast down, her hands nervously picking at the edge of the tablecloth. But he was not mistaken in her. She had wherewith to meet him, and her gaze was honest, without coquetry ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... purposeless manner! But the same end was always kept steadily in view. What I have witnessed this morning convinces me of your aims. Your movements were so skilfully managed that they scarcely seemed open to suspicion. The most specious coquetry has governed all your actions. You were always attired more simply than any one else; but by this very simplicity you thought to render yourself remarkable, and attract a larger share of attention. You always pretended to shun observation, ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... thus transgressing the fundamental principle of English justice; their watchful eyes seemed to be continually saying: 'Touch me—and I shall scream for help!' In costume, any elegance, any elaboration, any coquetry, was eschewed by them as akin to wantonness. Now Geraldine reversed all that. Her frock was candidly ornate. She told him she had made it herself, but it appeared to him that there were more stitches in it than ...
— A Great Man - A Frolic • Arnold Bennett
... principal inducements offered by a life at the North; but the awe of white people in which he had been reared was still too strong to permit his taking any active steps toward the object of his secret desire, had not the lady herself come to his assistance with a little of the native coquetry of her race. ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... was not helpless. But she turned, and with a spice of coquetry said, "Still I think you ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... more to convince Natura he had a rival; nor, as he knew Charlotte had nothing of coquetry in her humour, to make him also know she was not pleased with having attracted the affections of this new admirer: this gave him an inexpressible satisfaction; for tho', as yet, he had never once thought of making any addresses to her on the ...
— Life's Progress Through The Passions - Or, The Adventures of Natura • Eliza Fowler Haywood
... fixing on her victims her magnetic glances, commenced by attracting them, little by little, into the blazing whirlwind which seemed to emanate from her; then, seeing them lost, suffering every torment of a tantalized craving, she amused herself by a refinement of coquetry, prolonging their delirium; then, returning to her first instincts, she destroyed them in her homicidal embrace. This ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue
... Mr. Varleigh noted the position of the high-road by his pocket-compass. Captain Stanwick laughed at him, and offered me his arm. Ignorant as I was of the ways of the world and the rules of coquetry, my instinct (I suppose) warned me not to distinguish one of the gentlemen too readily at the expense of the other. I took my aunt's arm and ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... which was extremely well frothed. Candide could not help making encomiums upon their beauty and graceful carriage. "The creatures are well enough," said the senator. "I make them my companions, for I am heartily tired of the ladies of the town, their coquetry, their jealousy, their quarrels, their humors, their meannesses, their pride, and their folly. I am weary of making sonnets, or of paying for sonnets to be made, on them; but, after all, these two girls begin to grow very ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... wife, and the delight of going back from the dull dryasdust labours of his city life to a home in which she would bid him welcome. He behaved with a due amount of caution, and did not give the young lady any reason to suspect the state of the case yet awhile. Marian was perfectly devoid of coquetry, and had no idea that this gentleman's constant presence at the cottage could have any reference to herself. He liked her uncle; what more natural than that he should like that gallant soldier, whom Marian adored as the first of mankind? And it was out of his liking for the ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... herself and Miss Arthur, there now existed an appearance of great cordiality and friendliness. While she treated Percy with utmost politeness and hospitality, the remembrance of ten years ago acted as an effectual bar to anything like coquetry, where ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... effect was the result of the Spanish mode rather than of individual sophistication; just as the succession of lazy poses and bendings were the result of a racial feminine instinct rather than of conscious personal coquetry. Certainly we four red-shirted tramps were poor enough game. Nevertheless, whatever the motive, the effect was certainly real enough. She was alluring rather than charming, with her fan and her rebosa, her veiled glances, her languorous, bold ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... persecution; and in persons of her rank, suffering is one of the greatest virtues. People were apt to fancy that she was patient to a degree of indolence. In a word, they expected wonders from her; and Bautru used to say she had already worked a miracle because the most devout had forgotten her coquetry. The Duc d'Orleans, who made a show as if he would have disputed the Regency with the Queen, was contented to be Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom. The Prince de Conde was declared President of the Council, and the Parliament ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... charming gown of blue velveteen, with the same transparent fichu, garnet pendants in her ears, her hair in ringlets, the wily jeannette round her throat, black satin slippers, gray silk stockings, and gants de Suede; add to these things the manners of a queen and the coquetry of a young girl determined to capture Rogron. Her mother, calm and dignified, retained, as did her daughter, a certain aristocratic insolence, with which the two women hedged themselves and preserved the spirit of their caste. Bathilde was a woman of intelligence, ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... pains with her toilette, and looking at herself in the tall glass of her wardrobe, reflected, "I do not want to love Count Styvens. Then I ought not to want to be any more attractive to-night than usual. Am I a wicked girl? My cousin Maurice says, 'Coquetry is the cowardly woman's weapon, and I love you, little cousin, because you are ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... there was hope. Then again he would be plagued with despair, at some impertinence or coquetry of his mistress. For days they would be like brother and sister, or the dearest friends—she, simple, fond, and charming—he, happy beyond measure at her good behavior. But this would all vanish on a sudden. Either he would be too pressing, ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... that a woman may be able to keep a cook, may be finely educated, may possess the sentiment of coquetry, may have the right to pass whole hours in her boudoir lying on a sofa, and may live a life of soul, she must have at least six thousand francs a year if she lives in the country, and twenty thousand if she lives at Paris. These two financial limits will suggest to you how many ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... sufficiently disagreeable at times. It could not be pleasant to dine in a hall which had just been left by hundreds of men, and to make the meal amid the prospect of slovenly servants employed in the emptying of wine-glasses and the ligurrition of dishes, sometimes even in passages of coquetry or noisy civilities, on the interchange of which the presence of these undergraduates seemed to impose but little check. These things may be better now, and in spite of them Julian felt hearty reason to be grateful for the real kindness ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar
... measuring and enjoying her effects, of deliberately manipulating her public; and there must indeed have been a certain exhilaration in attaining results so considerable by means involving so little conscious effort. Mrs. Amyot's art was simply an extension of coquetry: she ...
— The Greater Inclination • Edith Wharton
... was not to be daunted. Doggedly he fought his way around and through the swampy underbrush and presently stood blinking his delighted eyes in a little natural clearing that was a glorious climax to all the tantalizing coquetry of the creek. Encircled by drooping, long-leaved willows that were themselves enringed by stately trees, lay a broad, deep pool, clear as crystal, one side carpeted with velvety turf and screened ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... the subtle picturesqueness which makes the Spanish people unique among the other Latin nations of Europe, came, not from her Gothic, nor her Roman, nor her Phenician ancestry, but from the plains of Arabia; and the guitar and the dance and the castanet, and the charm and the coquetry of her women, are echoes from that far-off land of poetry and romance. Not so the bull-fight! Would you trace to its source that pleasant pastime, you must not go to the East; the Oriental was cruel to man, but not to beast. He would have abhorred such a form of amusement, ...
— A Short History of Spain • Mary Platt Parmele
... thoroughly well done and none intrusively superior. Her little nose is a combination of all the amiabilities. Her black eyes sparkle with fun and mischief and wit, all playing over deep tenderness below. Her hair ripples itself full of gleams and shadows. The same coquetry of Nature that rippled her hair has dinted her cheeks with shifting dimples. Every time she smiles—and she smiles as if sixty an hour were not half allowance—a dimple slides into view and vanishes like a dot in a flow of sunny water. And, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 52, February, 1862 • Various
... impassioned, that she blushed with pleasure. The noble damsel herself was more charming than ever. Her magnificent blond hair was plaited in a ravishing manner, she was dressed entirely in that sky blue which becomes fair people so well, a bit of coquetry which she had learned from Colombe, and her eyes were swimming in that languor of love ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... Innocence which he so long and so indefatigably labour'd to supplant: And all this without ever having entertain'd the least previous Design or Thought for that Purpose: No Art used to inflame him, no Coquetry practised to tempt or intice him, and no Prudery or Affectation to tamper with his Passions; but, on the contrary, artless and unpractised in the Wiles of the World, all her Endeavours, and even all her Wishes, tended only to render herself as ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson
... name? Whether at Paris you prepare The supper and the chat to share, While fix'd in artificial row, Laughter displays its teeth of snow: Grimace with raillery rejoices, And song of many mingled voices, Till young coquetry's artful wile Some foreign novice shall beguile, Who home return'd, still prates of ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... even to the glorious hope of a coming campaign. The mystery surrounding her, her reticence, the muttered insinuation dropping from the unguarded lips of Murphy, merely served to render her the more attractive, while her own naive witchery of manner, and her seemingly unconscious coquetry, had wound about him a magic spell, the full power of which as yet remained but dimly appreciated. His mind lingered longingly upon the marvel of the dark eyes, while the cheery sound of that last rippling outburst of laughter reechoed ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... mirelevee. This meant tea and currant cake, and probably cider. A halt was called. Once more the men grouped themselves into unconscious picturesquesness, and ate and drank to their fill. But at this al fresco meal a delightful air of familiarity and coquetry made itself felt by the presence of the rosy maidens from Orvilliere; above all by the appearance of Blaisette Simon, who brought down a special batch of cakes, made and cooked by herself. Le Mierre was at her side at once and a pretty flirtation sprang up, for the master ...
— Where Deep Seas Moan • E. Gallienne-Robin
... neatly dressed, was returning from a visit. At first she came trotting after me, then timidly paused, then advanced, and, as I approached, stood spellbound at my remarkable appearance. At last recovering herself, she woh-wohed with all the coquetry of a Mganda woman, and a flirtation followed; she must see my hair, my watch, the contents of my pockets—everything; but that was not enough. I waved adieu, but still she followed. I offered my arm, showing her how to take it in ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... not so black as the men, are even more ugly. They are short and thick-set; their feet turn inwards, and their incredibly filthy habits make them repulsive. The coquetry which is innate in the female mind, induces them to add to their natural charms by the use of a labial ornament, as ugly as it is inconvenient, of which we have already spoken in our account of Captain Cook's ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... bimbangs the women often put on their dancing dress in the public hall, letting that garment which they mean to lay aside dexterously drop from under, as the other passes over the head, but sometimes, with an air of coquetry, displaying as if by chance enough to warm youthful imaginations. Both men and women anoint themselves before company when they prepare to dance; the women their necks and arms, and the men their breasts. They also paint each others faces; ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... full, it was plain. She scarcely wondered now at her discovery of two evenings before. And then she glanced slyly across the room again, and took it all in once more,—Mollie, bewitching in all the novelty of her small effort at coquetry; Chandos, leading her on, and evidently enjoying the task he had ...
— Vagabondia - 1884 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... not turned away. I held her hands in mine. She was powerless now to do more than delay the hour of her defeat. Suddenly the colour rushed back to the pale face; she began to smile; and with an expression of angelic coquetry, she asked: ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... quarter, "here a little and there a little," is one of the greatest evils of the day. This getting a little in love with Julia, and then a little with Eliza, and a little more with Mary,—this fashionable flirtation and coquetry of both sexes—is ruinous to the domestic affections; besides, effectually preventing the formation of true connubial love. I consider this dissipation of the affections one of the greatest sins against Heaven, ourselves, and the one trifled ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... instruments learned at school, for when She sits down to it she cannot tell what tune she is about to play. That is because she has no notion of what the instrument is capable. Babbie's kind- heartedness, her gaiety, her coquetry, her moments of sadness, had been a witch's fingers, and Gavin was still trembling under their touch. Even in being taken to task by her there was a charm, for every pout of her mouth, every shake of her head, ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... purchased by the loss of many gallant citizens—not won against the Phoenician and the Mede, like those of Cimon, but by the ruin of a city united with ourselves in amity and origin." The ready minister replied to the invective of Elpinice by a line from Archilochus, which, in alluding to the age and coquetry of the lady, probably answered the oratorical purpose of securing the laugh ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... delicate rendering of the gauzy kerchief veiling her neck, but it is far less wonderful than the delicate interpretation of her expression. The fine sensitiveness of her nature, her lively fancy and sense of humor, her playfulness, her coquetry, her impulsiveness, her volatile temperament—all this we read in the shining eyes and the smiling mouth, though no one can say how they were made to tell so much. The signs of her birth and breeding are in every line, yet she is something of a Bohemian too. There is a delightful ...
— Sir Joshua Reynolds - A Collection of Fifteen Pictures and a Portrait of the - Painter with Introduction and Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... was like a man trying to recollect the sound of a forgotten voice, a melody. He stared at the two figures, the one of medium height, slender and elegant, the other plump and small, at the grey mask and then at the black. These were not masks of coquetry and larking, masks which begin at the brow and end at the lips: they were curtained. Seized, by an impulse, occult or mechanic, the vicomte rose and drew near. The younger woman made a gesture. Was it of recognition? The vicomte could not say. But he saw her lean toward ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... not love, but the merest literary coquetry. Love is different from this. Lady Burton, when a very young girl, and six years before her engagement, met Burton at Boulogne. They met in the street, but did not speak. A few days later they were formally introduced at a dance. Of this ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... have lost every thing!" cried Lorenza, springing up and stamping with her silken-shod foot; "every thing is lost that I have been years gaining, by hypocrisy, deception, and coquetry. They have robbed me! The shameful barbarians have seized all our effects. The police surrounded the house, guarding every entrance, and we were obliged to escape by the roof into the house of one of the brothers, leaving ...
— Old Fritz and the New Era • Louise Muhlbach
... not to have prompted him to continue. Intuitively she had something more than a suspicion that he had led her on to say these very words. And in admitting that she cared to have the conversation proceed upon this footing, she realised that she was sheering towards unequivocal coquetry. She saw the false move now, knew that she had lowered her guard. On all accounts it would have been more dignified to have shown only a mild interest in what Corthell wished. She realised that once more she had acted upon impulse, and ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... merchants, diplomatists with a headache—any of our modern grandees under difficulties, might have envied that peace over which Mr. Goren presided: and he was an enviable man. He loved his craft, he believed that he had not succeeded the millions of antecedent tailors in vain; and, excepting that trifling coquetry with shirt-fronts, viz., the red crosses, which a shrewd rival had very soon eclipsed by representing nymphs triangularly posed, he devoted himself to his business from morning to night; as rigid in demanding respect from those beneath ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... seen. In person he was about an inch taller than I, athletic, and well formed. He made up to Mary, who, perceiving his impatience, and either to check him before me, or else from her usual feeling of coquetry, received him rather distantly, and went up to old Tom, with whom ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... lilies on a stem; And he asked that one of them be given him in marriage— He did not care which one it was, but left the choice to them. But, oh, the terror that they felt, their efforts to evade him, With careless art, with coquetry, with wile ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates
... of pleasure and a regular attendant at the theatre, had remarked the young actress behind the scenes; he fell in love with her, and he told her so. The girl listened to him, perhaps from vanity, perhaps from ambition, perhaps from coquetry; she listened, and allowed but few stolen interviews, in which she permitted no favor to the Englishman it was one reason why ...
— Zicci, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... preserved and her memory rich with interesting personal gossip of a former period. We Americans should have delighted to draw upon that memory, but one thing hindered us: that was the insatiable, indomitable, unparalleled coquetry of our ancient Maiden. She would never talk with any woman when any man was in the room. She descended to the stuffy little salon only in the evening, when the Relicts were gathered to their gambling for sous and the atmosphere was an imitation of the Black Hole ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... cheap fellows, sonorously garbed, were leaning over the counters, wrestling with the mediatorial hand-coverings, while giggling girls played vivacious seconds to their lead upon the strident string of coquetry. Carter would have retreated, but he had gone too far. Masie confronted him behind her counter with a questioning look in eyes as coldly, beautifully, warmly blue as the glint of summer sunshine on an iceberg drifting in ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... seen the robin courting, and have always been astonished and amused at the utter coldness and indifference of the female. The females of every species of bird, however, I believe, have this in common,—they are absolutely free from coquetry, or any airs and wiles whatever. In most cases, Nature has given the song and the plumage to the other sex, and all the embellishing and acting is done by ...
— Birds and Poets • John Burroughs
... inferior characters were on the stage. Madame Bouchereau trifled with an elegant nosegay, whose perfume she frequently inhaled, and whose crimson flowers contrasted so well with the fairness of her complexion, as to justify a suspicion that there was some coquetry in the manoeuvre executed with such apparent negligence. Leaning back in her chair, she frequently turned her head, the better to hear Magnian's smiling and half-whispered remarks. The husband paid no attention to their conversation, and did not seem to remark its intimate ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... remarks on the Polonaise and Mazourka are full of the philosophy and essence of history. These dances grew directly from the heart of the Polish people; repeating the martial valor and haughty love of noble exhibition of their men; the tenderness, devotion, and subtle coquetry of their women—they were of course favorite forms with Chopin; their national character made them dear to the national poet. The remarks of Liszt on these dances are given with a knowledge so ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... that the little breakfast-table was arranged with neat coquetry and set off with a bunch of red roses that filled the air with their exquisite fragrance. Next he saw that Mlle. Fouchette herself seemed uncommonly charming. She not only had her hair done up, but her best dress on instead of the ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... necessary to me in the same body, without which I always felt a void. I thought I was upon the point of filling it up forever. This young person, amiable by a thousand excellent qualities, and at that time by her form, without the shadow of art or coquetry, would have confined within herself my whole existence, could hers, as I had hoped it would, have been totally confined to me. I had nothing to fear from men; I am certain of being the only man she ever really ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... seen seated on their heels, telling their beads, or pulling their fingers through their thick black hair, that, if kept clean, would be beautiful, or in some other way tricking forth their charms to all advantage; for, though generally as ugly as sin, they are as full of coquetry as any belle of May-fair, and as vain of admiration; of the which, to say truth, they appear to come in for more than a share from our tars, two or three of whom may usually be seen lounging alongside the youngest of the native group, ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... immediately respond to the lady's advances. They were probably too shy, too tentative, to attract Rochester's attention. It is probable, also, that there were plenty of beautiful women about the Court, more mature, more practised in the arts of coquetry than Frances, and very likely not at all 'blate'—as Carr and his master would put it—in showing themselves ready for conquest by the King's ...
— She Stands Accused • Victor MacClure
... of Lord Ernolf, who was most happy to give it, Cecilia seemed tolerably easy. Lord Derford, too, encouraged by his father, endeavoured to engage some share of her attention; but he totally failed; her mind was superior to little arts of coquetry, and her pride had too much dignity to evaporate in pique; she determined, therefore, at this time, as at all others, to be consistent in shewing him he had no chance of ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)
... because she flatters man's vanity. I do not know whether Aniela is conscious of this, or whether it be her womanly instinct. Maybe she has heard so much about me from my aunt that she deems every word I say an oracle. She is decidedly not without coquetry. To-day I asked her what she wished for most in life. She answered, "To see Rome;" then her eyelashes fell, and she looked indescribably pretty. She sees that I like her, and it makes her happy. Her coquetry is charming, because it ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... It is, however, at this moment—the agony-point to the embarrassed lover, who "doats yet doubts"—whose suppressed feelings render him morbidly sensitive—that a lady should be especially careful lest any show of either prudery or coquetry on her part should lose to her for ever the object of her choice. True love is generally delicate and timid, and may easily be scared by affected indifference, through feelings of wounded pride. A lover needs very little to assure ...
— Routledge's Manual of Etiquette • George Routledge
... dear, that I have reason to be incensed at him, my situation considered? Am I not under a necessity, as it were, of quarrelling with him; at least every other time I see him? No prudery, no coquetry, no tyranny in my heart, or in my behaviour to him, that I know of. No affected procrastination. Aiming at nothing but decorum. He as much concerned, and so he ought to think, as I, to have that observed. Too much in his power: cast upon him by the cruelty of my relations. No other protection to ...
— Clarissa, Volume 4 (of 9) - History Of A Young Lady • Samuel Richardson
... fatigues of hunting, and requested a draught of milk from her hands to allay his thirst, or a bunch of roses from her little flower plot to adorn his waistcoat, Elinor answered his demands with secret mistrust and terror; although, with the coquetry so natural to her sex, she could not hate him for the amiable weakness of regarding her ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... the ship that was black with men, women, and children. But what shall we say of those billows of human life, of which we are ourselves a part, that surge over the graves of its own dead with dances and laughter and many a coquetry, with panting chase for gain and preference, and pious regrets and tender condolences for the thousands that died ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... kind of picture," said Basil, "it lowers one's ideal of woman. I do not think there is one-half so much coquetry in the world as ...
— The Coquette's Victim • Charlotte M. Braeme
... Buonaparte the command of the Army of Italy. The advice of Barras undoubtedly helped to still the questioning surmises of Josephine; and the wedding was celebrated, as a civil contract, on March 9th, 1796. With a pardonable coquetry, the bride entered her age on the register as four years less than the thirty-four which had passed over her: while her husband, desiring still further to lessen the disparity, entered his date ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... eye from omnibus and pavement rested gratefully on her fresh, trim presence as she passed young and erect, with the light of determination shining through the quiet self-possession of her face. She was dressed as English girls do dress for town, without either coquetry or harshness: her collarless blouse confessed a pretty neck, her eyes were bright and steady, and her dark hair waved loosely ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells
... regretted her defection, and now, recalling her, the other women seemed insipid, their childish graces and monotonous coquetry disgusting him. ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... heart was full of laughter,—a rare, rich heritage,—and she was little inclined to look on the serious side of life if she could avoid it; but beneath all there was a real Yolanda, with a great, tender heart and a shrewd, helpful brain. She was somewhat of a coquette, but coquetry salts a woman and gives her relish. It had been a grievous waste on the part of Providence to give to any girl such eyes as Yolanda's and to withhold from her a modicum of coquetry with which to use them. Taken all in all, Yolanda, whoever ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... such a way that the hieratic severity of earlier times disappeared but slowly." And he continued: "It is true, the artists' models were the noble ladies of their period; not only on account of their kindly smiling faces, but also on account of the charming coquetry with which their hands drew their cloaks across the bosom." And the art-historian, Male, says: "It is a remarkable fact that in the thirteenth century the legend, or the story, of the Virgin Mary was depicted on the doors of ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... Her coquetry vanished. Her smile fled with it. Her pretty pose was abandoned. Mrs. T. A. Buck, wife, gave way to Emma McChesney Buck, business woman. She stiffened a little, as though bracing herself for ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... the lemons with a little gesture expressing amusement, triumph, and a dash of coquetry. Laurie's eyes glowed as he looked at her. For the second time, in her actual presence, a sharp thrill shot through him. Oh, if she were always like this!—gay, happy, without that incredible, unbelievable background ...
— The Girl in the Mirror • Elizabeth Garver Jordan
... most charming coquetry I have ever seen!' said all the ladies round. And they all took to holding water in their mouths that they might gurgle whenever anyone spoke to them. Then they thought themselves nightingales. Yes, the lackeys and chambermaids ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... derived much pleasure, since my arrival at the Hall, from observing the fair Julia and her lover. She has all the delightful, blushing consciousness of an artless girl, inexperienced in coquetry, who has made her first conquest; while the captain regards her with that mixture of fondness and exultation with which a youthful lover is apt to ...
— Bracebridge Hall, or The Humorists • Washington Irving
... took a rose from a vase and fastened it in her dress. The whole movement and action had the unconscious coquetry of a woman's methods to gain her end. Totally unaccustomed as Stella was to all artifices, instinct ...
— The Point of View • Elinor Glyn
... image by rote, and as I conned the traits in memory it seemed as if I read her very heart. She was dressed with something of her mother's coquetry and love of positive colour. Her robe, which I knew she must have made with her own hands, clung about her with a cunning grace. After the fashion of that country, besides, her bodice stood open in the middle, in a long slit, and here, in spite of the poverty of the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume XXI • Robert Louis Stevenson
... walked home that night with Elizabeth. She was a tall blonde girl, lithe and graceful, and with a calculated coquetry in ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... this woman of the East marvels at the women of the West, 'the beautiful worldly women of the West,' whom she sees walking in the Cascine, 'taking the air so consciously attractive in their brilliant toilettes, in the brilliant coquetry of their manner!' She finds them 'a little incomprehensible,' 'profound artists in all the subtle intricacies of fascination,' and asks if these 'incalculable frivolities and vanities and coquetries and caprices' are, to us, an essential part of their charm? ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... and was entitled, if he could, to win Junia for himself, to the mind of Denzil the stain of his brother's past was on Tarboe's life. He saw Tarboe and Junia meet; he knew Tarboe put himself in her way, and he was right in thinking that the girl, with a mind for comedy and coquetry, was ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... premieres of the capital. She has been justly called the most loveable actress upon the French stage; so graceful, so soft and womanly, displaying alternately such genuine feeling and nature, and such arch coquetry of manner; always such great freshness of style. We were pleased to see her properly appreciated during her last visit to London, both by press and public. Trained to the stage from so early an age—although not, as Mademoiselle Dejazet is said to have been, born in a theatre—it ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCLXXVI. February, 1847. Vol. LXI. • Various
... what retrieval of lost comeliness could be effected in a day or two? The utmost thing of practical value she could do was to buy a new, gay dressing-gown and a pair of high-heeled slippers. And Andrew, conscious of waning beauty, overlooked it in the light of her new and unsuspected coquetry. Where once the slattern lolled about the little salon, now moved an attractively garbed and tidy woman. Instead of the sloven, he found a housewife who made up in zeal for lack of experience. The patriotic ...
— The Mountebank • William J. Locke
... the peace of the same husbands, that he would forbid coquetry, as well as lace, and gold or silver embroidery. I have bought the law on purpose, so that Isabella may read it aloud; and, by and by, when she is at leisure, it shall be our entertainment after supper. (Perceiving ...
— The School for Husbands • Moliere
... less he has to address and to consider others, friends or enemies, the more truly he utters his deepest soul. Intercourse with particular people always causes little scruples in him, intentional amenities, coquetry, reticences, reserves, spiteful hits, evasions. Therefore it should not be thought that we get to know him to the core from his letters. Natures like his, which all contact with men unsettles, give their best and deepest when they speak impersonally ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... attained the object of her wishes. She had finally reached it by bribery and intrigue, by hypocritical tenderness, by the resignation of her maiden modesty and womanly honor, and by all the arts of coquetry. ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... subtlety of their natures, and they think that they are understood. And what do all women wish but to be amused, understood, or adored? It is only after much reflection on the things of life that we understand the consummate coquetry of neglect of dress and reserve at a first interview; and by the time we have gained sufficient astuteness for successful strategy, we are too old to ...
— The Deserted Woman • Honore de Balzac
... her voice, while still full of coquetry, was urgent, and I think we both noted for the first time how white of face she was, and how wearily her eyes shone. The Frenchman, ever ready in such courtesies, was the first to respond ...
— When Wilderness Was King - A Tale of the Illinois Country • Randall Parrish
... the eternal spring in which God reflects Himself. The candour of a child, unconscious of its own beauty and seeing God clear as the daylight, is the great revelation of the ideal, just as the unconscious coquetry of the flower is a proof that Nature adorns ...
— Recollections of My Youth • Ernest Renan
... be pleased with nothing when you are not pleased with your wife. One of the "Spectators" is very just that says, "A man ought always to be upon his guard against spleen and a too severe philosophy; a woman, against levity and coquetry." If we go to Naples, I will make no acquaintance there of any kind, and you will be in a place where a variety of agreeable objects will dispose you to be ever pleased. If such a thing is possible, this will secure our everlasting happiness; and I ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... and her tenderness was ever on the alert, with a smile that seemed to know and tell everything, against the passionate impulses that Christophe found it hard to suppress. She had her weaknesses, moments of abandonment to the caprice of the minute, a coquetry at which she herself mocked but never fought against. She was never in revolt against things, nor against herself: she had come to a gentle fatalism, and she was altogether kind, ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... Leighton was not rewarded for her effort, for a stiffer and more uncomfortable companion could not be imagined. He entirely declined to respond to her coquetry, and she very soon found she must abandon this role; but she was nothing if not coquettish, and the conversation flagged uncomfortably. Before we reached home she was quite impatient, and ran up the steps, when we got there, as if it ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris
... equal justice, draw the characters of the women there, from those which he might meet with on board the ships in one of the naval ports, or in the purlieus of Covent-Garden and Drury-Lane. I must however allow, that they are all completely versed in the art of coquetry, and that very few of them fix any bounds to their conversation. It is therefore no wonder that they have ...
— A Voyage Towards the South Pole and Round the World, Volume 1 • James Cook
... the Country last Summer, I was often in Company with a Couple of charming Women, who had all the Wit and Beauty one could desire in Female Companions, with a Dash of Coquetry, that from time to time gave me a great many agreeable Torments. I was, after my Way, in Love with both of them, and had such frequent opportunities of pleading my Passion to them when they were asunder, that I had Reason to hope for particular Favours from each of them. As I ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... morning, having heard that Prince Ernest was going to Eldena to receive the dues, she watched for him, probably through the key-hole, knowing he must pass her door. Accordingly, just as he went by, she opened it, and presented herself to his eyes dressed in unusual elegance and coquetry, and wearing a short robe which showed her pretty little sandals. The Prince, when he saw the short robe, and that she looked so beautiful, blushed, and passed on quickly, turning away his head, for he remembered the promise he had given ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... all this as she put her hand upon the look of the door. She would be honest to him—honest and true. She was, in truth, glad to see him, and he should know it. What cared she now for the common ways of women and the usual coyness of feminine coquetry? She told herself also, in language somewhat differing from that which Doodles had used, that her filly days were gone by, and that she was now a trained mare. All this passed through her mind as her hand was on the door, and ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... attendants, moved before the cavalcade into the heart of the forest. A fantastic train it was, with the picturesque costumes of the riders, the tinted tails of their horses and dogs flashing an orange trail in the sunshine, a touch of coquetry much in vogue among the young Cyprian nobles ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... must have been dreadfully bored," he said, promptly catching the ball of coquetry she had flung him. But apparently she did not care to pursue the conversation in that strain, and she ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... eyes and lips, that go with what you might call these little audacities, then you would know how they not only accent and punctuate the text, but supply whole commentaries on it. If you get a notion that the Princess is capable of boldness, or vulgar coquetry, or any of the faults of her sex or of ours, you are away off the track, and my engineering must have gone wrong. But I must stop this and get ...
— A Pessimist - In Theory and Practice • Robert Timsol
... disposition and her pre-eminent femininity. There was that about her which suggested the luxury of love. He felt as if somehow she could be reached why, he could not have said. She did not bear any outward marks of her previous experience. There were no evidences of coquetry about her, but still he "felt that he might." He was inclined to make the venture on his first visit, but business called him away; he left after four days and was absent from Cleveland for three weeks. Jennie thought ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... wholly without coquetry, much as an elder brother might speak to a younger. It was plain that she meant to have her way, though Maud, who knew that there was a very strong mixture of stubbornness in Bunny, wondered much if she would get it. Amusement, ...
— Charles Rex • Ethel M. Dell
... gowned than Marian. In the light of this proximity he watched her with a new attention, and he saw that her father, too, studied her covertly, as though realizing that he had a grown daughter on his hands. Her way with Harwood was not without coquetry; she tapped his arm with her fan lightly when he refused to enter into a discussion of his attentions, of which she protested she knew much, to Miss Bosworth. He admitted having called on Miss ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... all her life, had seen to that. And so she had been thrown upon her own resources, with the excellent result that she had grown up with a mind untainted by any worldly thought. And now, when this man came to her with his version of the old, old story, she knew no coquetry, knew how to exercise no coyness or other blandishment. She made no pretense of any sort. She loved him, so what else was there to do but to ...
— The Night Riders - A Romance of Early Montana • Ridgwell Cullum
... this ornamentation, and displayed much coquetry in attracting our notice to it. Wealthier women in Tibet have quite a small fortune hanging down their backs, for all the money or valuables earned or saved are sewn on to the Tchukti. To the lower end of the Tchukti one, two or three rows of small brass or silver bells are attached, ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... support she had much need. Their jealous hatred was displayed on every occasion; and the amiable Josephine, whose only fault was being too much of the woman, was continually tormented by sad presentiments. Carried away by the easiness of her character, she did not perceive that the coquetry which enlisted for her so many defenders also supplied her implacable enemies with weapons to ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... little of the spirit of coquetry yourself,—(what a native growth it is!)—and if she lift her eyes when you are gazing at her, you very suddenly divert your look to the cat at her feet, and remark to your friend Frank in an easy off-hand way—how still the cat ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... And he told the ladies how Huxter had elevated Fanny to the rank of wife, and what terrors he was in respecting the arrival of his father. He described the scene with considerable humor, taking care to dwell especially upon that part of it which concerned Fanny's coquetry and irrepressible desire of captivating mankind; his meaning being "You see, Laura, I was not so guilty in that little affair; it was the girl who made love to me, and I who resisted. As I am no longer present, the little siren practices her arts and fascinations ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... struggling with the rest to live and breed. Beneath each hedgerow in the springtime we can read our own romances in the making—the first faint stirring of the blood, the roving eye, the sudden marvellous discovery of the indispensable She, the wooing, the denial, hope, coquetry, despair, contention, rivalry, hate, jealousy, love, bitterness, victory, and death. Our comedies, our tragedies, are being played upon each blade of grass. In fur and feather we ...
— Tea-table Talk • Jerome K. Jerome
... quite surely why he had not. He was afraid to risk his momentary happiness upon her answer. And why had she not volunteered the assurance he wanted so eagerly and dared not ask for? The beastly answer to that question was that she had enjoyed the thrill of his uncertainty—a miserable sort of feline coquetry. ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... a seat, and indicated with a finger the place where he might repose. It was at a three yards' distance. Then they talked as they were wont to, with much coquetry on Alice's side, and on Keene's always humble submissiveness tempered with glances and sighs. They drank tea, and Keene used the opportunity of putting down his cup to take ...
— Demos • George Gissing
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