"Nonchalant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... they abandoned all their pretence of nonchalant confidence and did not talk at all. Of course, they knew Florette would come in her own good time, but the stifling atmosphere of that musty hole and the ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... as to disconcert even the boldest. Never had a sally made her laugh; never had an air in an opera, a flight of tragedy, moved her; indeed, never had her heart given a sign of life; and, on seeing her pass in all the splendor of her nonchalant loveliness one might have taken her for a beautiful somnambulist, walking through the world as in ...
— International Short Stories: French • Various
... over Irene. She came flying up stairs with some choice nectarines for Mrs. Lawrence, a kind that seemed only to reach perfection in Miss Barry's old-fashioned garden. There sat Irene, superb, nonchalant. ...
— Hope Mills - or Between Friend and Sweetheart • Amanda M. Douglas
... not express the assurance he tried to put into his voice. He went back to the piano and leaned on it, his posture such that it might have indicated a nonchalant ease or, equally well, might have betrayed his desperate need ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... Mr. Henfrey," he replied, with a gay, rather nonchalant air. "My friend Mr. Peters has been speaking about you. Had a rather anxious ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... best of brothers, but he didn't often kiss her good-night. There had been a strange touch of excitement, of emotion, in his manner to-night. It was natural that she herself should be moved by Nancy Dampier's distress. But Gerald? Gerald, who was generally speaking rather nonchalant, and very, very critical ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... self-defense by sharply reprimanding the child in words that are meant to give the visitor the idea that they—the parents—never heard or saw such conduct before, and are now frozen with amazement. The nonchalant or incredulous or impish way in which the children receive these reproofs only confirms the suspicion that such scenes have been frequent, and the discipline ...
— Etiquette • Agnes H. Morton
... all the rest, with the nonchalant survey of virgin dandyism, Francis Hazeldean looked over one of the high starched neckcloths which were then the fashion,—a handsome lad, fresh from Eton for the summer holidays, but at that ambiguous age when one disdains the sports of the boy, and has not yet arrived ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... course a partner in all the charges of the day—and made Laura bite her lip. Outside he showed a strong desire to walk with Miss Fountain that he might instruct her in the details of the Bessemer process and the manufacture of steel rails. But the ease with which the little nonchalant creature disposed of him, the rapidity with which he found himself transferred to Polly, and left to stare at the backs of Laura and Hubert hurrying along in ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. I. • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hand so hard and said that, really the same nonchalant young man who had leaned out of the carriage window, gurgling with laughter? And what had made the difference? She buried her face in the heliotrope, whose perfume seemed the memory of his visit; then, going to the piano, began to play. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... herself gently. He got up and looked down at her, aware of her face, of her hair, her lips, the dimples on her cheeks—seeing the fascination of her person in the night of the gulf as if in the blaze of noonday. Her nonchalant and seductive voice trembled with the excitement of admiring awe ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... in the Vatican excited our wonder and admiration. They are most beautifully worked pictures, and cover the walls over an immense area. Unfortunately, we had a nonchalant guide on this day, who was only enthusiastic over his cigarettes, and whose purely mechanical utterances exasperated one in the same degree as do the solemn old Beefeaters in our own Tower, or the garrulous, conceited guide at Notre Dame, Paris. A ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... and Roger Barnes came down. The former was pale, but as quietly composed as ever; the latter nonchalant, yet wearing that gleam of satisfaction in his eye which is ever the badge of ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... boat, the flagship, was decorated from one end to the other with its faded pennants, but in the stern, proudly proclaiming its present nationality, flew the Stars and Stripes. Under the flag at the bow stood a sturdy, nonchalant figure, arms folded, head erect. Condescendingly Piang swept the crowd of wondering natives with his haughty eye. He paid no more attention to Sicto than to the others. In his supreme self-confidence Piang scorned to report Sicto to the authorities. He was clothed ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... rich"—the tone was still nonchalant—"the Haves against the Haven'ts. No nonsense left, by that time, about 'blood' and 'family.' Society will have dropped all those little trimmings and embroideries. We shall have come to the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... His hair was dark auburn in colour, short and wavy, with a sort of golden tinge in it; his forehead was broad and open, and below it were two uncommonly waggish blue eyes. His habitual expression was a mixture of nonchalant good humour and gay insouciance, but the slightly aquiline, prominent nose and the set of the square aggressive jaw belied in a measure the ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... time the body lay across the threshold without a sign of life. The buzz of the roulette-wheel was resumed and the crap- dealer began his monotonous routine. Every eye was fixed on the nonchalant man at the bar, but the unconscious creature outside the threshold lay unheeded, for in these men's code it behooves the most humane to practise a certain aloofness in the matter of ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... by General Serano, and wished he had not assumed quite so nonchalant an air, although he felt that he could not have answered the questions which would perhaps involve the safety of Captain Dynamite. They were unquestionably in a disagreeable situation. He realized that if he were to tell the entire truth they would be immediately released, but ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... and Palmerston conducted it all just as he thought fit. This year Cabinet after Cabinet passed over, and no mention was ever made of the affairs of the East, till one day, at the end of a Cabinet, Palmerston, in the most easy nonchalant way imaginable, said that he thought it right to mention that he had been for a long time engaged in negotiation upon the principles agreed upon at the Cabinet at Windsor, and that he had drawn up a Treaty, with which it was fit the Cabinet should be acquainted. ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... second, its desire for peace and fraternity with the United States; and in the third, its determination to stand by the Queen's dominions on the other side of the Atlantic. Language so just and so clear would lead to the inevitable result of renewed negociation. But who should negociate? The incapable, nonchalant people who have so signally perilled the interests of Great Britain,—or new and capable men? Or should the whole state of our relations with the United States be ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... them, I would be ignorant for quite a long time, until I had grown positively faint from loss of blood. Furthermore, the blacks seemed to think nothing of their attacks, but would simply crush them on their persons in the most nonchalant manner. Sometimes they scorch them off their bodies by means of a lighted stick—a kind office which Yamba performed for me. The blacks had very few real cures for ailments, and such as they had ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... was nonchalantly playing his nonchalant music. Therese, who for eight days had been running to churches and museums in the company of Madame Marmet, was thinking of the annoyance which her companion caused her by discovering in the faces of the ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... customer by a renowned French dressmaker: "Un rien et madame est habillee!" They are coquettishly revealing their claims to the Eve-bitten fruit which Paris holds in his hand. Paris and his friend are in the most nonchalant of attitudes. They could not be more indifferent, or more superior in appearance, were they dandies judging the class for costermonger's donkeys at a provincial horse-show. The three most beautiful women in the world are squirming and posturing for praise, and a decision, before two as sophisticated ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... an attitude of intense watchfulness. As a steward passed down the corridor he assumed a careless expression and lit a cigarette with nonchalant elaboration. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 28, 1914 • Various
... and bloom. Marion's pink and white beauty was at its zenith, and the social attentions she was beginning to receive only served to render her elder sister more than ever irritable and envious. Louis was his old nonchalant self, careless and listless, with an ever deepening expression of ennui which was pitiful in one so young. His European travels had not improved him, ...
— A Beautiful Possibility • Edith Ferguson Black
... madness to attempt an escape with his eyes upon me; so, assuming as nonchalant a look as my present feelings would allow, I answered his inquiring glance with one of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... shaking hands, although it was obvious that they were acquainted, at least. The great detective's tone when he greeted his visitor was as distinctly ironical as the latter's was uneasy, although he replied with a mirthless chuckle, which was intended to be airily nonchalant. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... lower down, up to the napes of their necks, where they rested under the very fringe of their bear-skin caps. A couple of officers, with swords drawn, walked up and down behind the ranks, but, though they were tall, fine fellows, and expressed in the nonchalant fulfilment of their part a high sense of boredom, they did not give the scene any such poignant interest as it had from the men in performing a duty, or indulging a privilege, by hopping into the air and bouncing their knapsacks up to their necks. After what ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... the man?" said Eastman, in a nonchalant voice. He inhaled the smoke from his cigar with ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the garden a while, maintaining a pretense of nonchalant interest in Jontarou's flowers and colorful bug life. She experienced the most curious little chills of alarm from time to time, but discovered no signs of a lurking intruder, or of TT either. Then, for half an hour or more, she'd just sat cross-legged in the grass, ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... it too well, doctor. I wish I could infuse some degree of nonchalant carelessness into Daisy's ...
— Melbourne House, Volume 2 • Susan Warner
... and wonderfully imitative," answered he. "They can catch almost anything they hear." He spoke in a nonchalant tone, but she felt his arm tremble as she leaned upon it. He had never before made such an ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... to an amount of heterogeneous business. Busy the Consul undoubtedly was, writing and studying; nevertheless, he welcomed his visitor. The young man came in like an inhabitant of another world, as he was; in spotlessly neat attire, leisurely manner, and with his blue eyes sleepily nonchalant at the sight of all the stir of all the world. But they smiled ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... Custer came down to breakfast radiant and joyous, with a consciousness of being in perfect keeping with the unpoetic sunshine, she was stricken with consternation at finding Mr. Bruce as distant and nonchalant as ever. No lingering, exploring glance this morning—nothing but the usual flash of his dark eyes as he bowed to her. Was it possible that all the fine effects of last night had passed out ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... undergone a change. When in the presence of Barbara he had been confident, nonchalant. When he dismounted from his horse and walked toward Harlan there was about him an atmosphere that suggested carefulness. Before Haydon had taken half a dozen steps Harlan was aware that the man knew him—knew of ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... Mark left. There had been a time when the first move for departure was as trying as the ordeal of entrance, but he had got beyond that. Tonight he felt that he did it in quite an easy nonchalant way, the ladies, true to a gracious tradition, trailing after him into the hall. It was there that an unexpected blow fell; Chrystie, the enfant terrible, delivered it. Gliding about to the hummed refrain ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... frank and nonchalant, evidently a little proud of her important position. She posed before Lane and pirouetted with ...
— The Day of the Beast • Zane Grey
... preserve them in the elderly as they do in youth is a problem to be solved when we understand the laws of regeneration, at present almost totally beyond our control. Some say that it is a matter of the wear and tear of our blood vessels, those rubber-like tubes which transport food and drainage with nonchalant equanimity to all cells as long as they last. In the classic phrase: a man is as old as his arteries, ergo his ductless glands will be as old as their arteries. And the age of arteries is simply a matter of wear and tear, the resultant of the function which ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... this day the Americans drove off the stock on Hog Island, which, with their capture of the schooner, was considered a great achievement. Three days later the stock was driven from Noddle's Island: "a trifling property," says Lieutenant Barker, "which we have no connexion with." This nonchalant dismissal of five hundred sheep and lambs[87] scarcely comes well from one who had recently recorded that his mess had "luckily got a Sheep." Within a week other large islands, which the army and the fleet might naturally have regarded as their own storehouses, ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... Over his knees, and waged a mimic warfare across them, Made him their battle-ground, and won and lost kingdoms upon him. Airily to and fro, and out of one room to another Passed his cousin, and busied herself with things of the household, Nonchalant, debonair, blithe, with bewitching housewifely importance, Laying the cloth for the supper, and bringing the meal from the kitchen; Fairer than ever she seemed, and more than ever she mocked him, Coming behind ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... Dreiser," he exclaimed, hunting me up about an hour after the letter arrived. "Oh, ho! Say, you know I believe he thinks it's the real thing. It seemed to make him a little sick. He tried to appear nonchalant, but a little later he got his hat and went out, over to Deck's," a nearby saloon, "for a drink, for I followed him. He's all fussed up. Wait'll we heave into view that night! I'm going to get myself up like a joke, a hobo. I'll disgrace him. Oh, Lord, ...
— Twelve Men • Theodore Dreiser
... friend of his early days in Cape Town, nor yet again the blithe companion of his last tedious hours of convalescence. This girl was altogether admirable; but a bit awe-inspiring withal. He watched the nonchalant ease with which she provided a white-haired veteran of many wars and many orders with a cup of steaming tea, and then sat and chatted with him while he drank it. He felt himself a bashful boy, as he watched her, and, like any other bashful boy, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... looked down at the nonchalant invalid. Above, the sounds of women's steps and an occasional snatch of a sentence could be ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... collided with a dapper young man in a dinner jacket at that moment about to enter Therese's sitting-room. Pulling up short, he looked to see who it was who made so free of the house, and, simultaneously, the visitor wheeled round with an expression of nonchalant arrogance. ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... any further conversation and Joan bent her attention on the stage once more, though all the time that her eyes and ears were absorbing the shifting scenes and brilliant dialogue of the play a little, persistent inner voice at the back of her brain kept repeating Diana's nonchalant "I really don't see very much of her nowadays," ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... squirrel; but what of that? The nimble creature, having swooped up to a high limb, seats itself there, and looks down upon its impotent pursuer with a nonchalant defiance—at intervals more emphatically expressing the sentiment by a saucy jerk of its tail. But this false security proves the squirrel's ruin. Deceived by it, the silly animal makes no effort to conceal its body behind the branch; but, sitting upright in ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... drove up to-day in her hateful big car. She did not find me a very agreeable hostess, I'm afraid, but curled up like a nonchalant green snake in one of my armchairs and started to smoke and talk. She asked where Duncan was and I had to explain that he'd been called out to the mines on imperative business. And that started her going on the mines. Duncan, she ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... silver; his table-plate of exquisite workmanship. The queen knighted him, gave him a sword, and said, "Whoever striketh at you, Drake, striketh at us." A band of musicians accompanied the fleet, and the English sailor went to circumnavigate the globe with the same nonchalant magnificence with which in other days the gorgeous Alcibiades, with flutes and soft recorders blowing under silken sails, came idling ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... perfectly motionless, even to her fingers and eyelids. The Iron Duke standing at her left, bent, and trembled slightly—supporting with evident difficulty the ponderous sword of State. Prince Albert, sitting tall and soldier- like, in his handsome Field-Marshal's uniform, looked nonchalant and serene, but with a certain far-away expression in his eyes. The Earl of Derby held the crown on its gorgeous-cushion gracefully, like an accomplished waiter presenting a tray of ices. On a like occasion, some time ago, I hear the Duke of Argyle had the ill-luck to ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... truth, Charles was beside himself with anger. He took the elevator down to the "Bureau," as they call it, and complained to the manager. The manager, a sharp-faced New Yorker, smiled as he remarked in a nonchalant way that guests with valuables were required to leave them in charge of the management, in which case they were locked up in the safe and duly returned to the depositor on leaving. Charles declared somewhat excitedly that he had ...
— An African Millionaire - Episodes in the Life of the Illustrious Colonel Clay • Grant Allen
... I looked up into the clear noon blue of the ancient sky. A pigeon was flying across the wide open spaces of the square, the sunlight glinting on its wings. I saw the quiet green tops of the trees in the park, and the statue of Roscoe Conkling, turning a nonchalant shoulder toward the heated speaker who said there was no God. How many strange ideas, contradictory arguments, curious logic, have fallen, this last quarter century, upon the stony ears of Roscoe Conkling! Far above me the Metropolitan tower, that wonder work of men, lifted itself ...
— Great Possessions • David Grayson
... me, considering our feelings, that the Major's nonchalant use of that "we" was without the consent of the governed. But when he started forward we followed. Our moral cowardice overwhelmed our physical cowardice, and our legs tracked ahead while our hearts ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... and stormed, called him "demented Bismarck," "Napoleon worshiper," "hollow braggart," "a country gentleman of moderate political training, inconsistent, nonchalant, insolent to a degree;—pray when did Bismarck ever express ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... before him, whistling softly the while in the most nonchalant manner, completely ignoring his visitor's presence, to the man's evident annoyance, his anger finding vent in a heavy ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... There was something in the dawn's delicate loveliness that seemed to him inexpressibly pathetic, and he thought of all the days that break in beauty, and that set in storm. These rustics, too, with their rough, good-humoured voices, and their nonchalant ways, what a strange London they saw! A London free from the sin of night and the smoke of day, a pallid, ghost-like city, a desolate town of tombs! He wondered what they thought of it, and whether they knew anything of ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... him stood the familiar form of the Jan Lucar; and a few feet beyond, a figure from which came a clear, cool, nonchalant voice; ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... for your introduction," said the Count quietly, and, bowing, he withdrew with the same nonchalant air as he had entered. Trust the devil to know ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... trait of Crusoe's gentle nature, that, the moment any danger ceased, he resumed his expression of nonchalant gravity. The expression on this occasion was misunderstood, however, and, as about two dozen additional yelping dogs had joined the ranks of the enemy, they advanced in close order to ...
— The Dog Crusoe and his Master • R.M. Ballantyne
... this harangue was finished, which I uttered in an easy and nonchalant tone of voice, as if reciting something that everybody knew, his lordship stood on his feet again, staring at me like a man thunderstruck. This gave me the opportunity of exercising that politeness which ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... and I'll tell you," was Mark's nonchalant reply, while Wilford, seizing his shoulder and compelling ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... she knew instinctively how to ply her needle so as to fascinate an admirer and make a pretty thing for her wearing at one and the same time; she had quite different ways of working according to the person watching her,—a nonchalant way for those she would lull into a gentle languor, a capricious way for those she was fain to see in a more or less despairing mood. For Evariste, she bent with an air of painstaking absorption over her scarf, for she wanted to stir a sentiment of ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... to me. I'll soon show him that the girl's not worth a second thought," replied Flockart with nonchalant air. "All you have to do is to act as I suggested the other night. Then leave the ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... reader, have you observed that a person who is exceptionally nonchalant with his inferiors, is never nonchalant with persons of a higher rank? Why is that? But such questions ...
— Rudin • Ivan Turgenev
... your blood made mine flow fast; But you sipped your tea With a nonchalant air, and balanced the spoon, ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... he slowed up, put on a nonchalant air, and strolling in, looked about for Castile soap. There it was, the same kind, displayed in a box and looking just as his ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... sample-case that spanned his knees he sorted and re-sorted with infinite earnestness a large and varied consignment of "Ladies' Pink and Blue Ribbed Undervests." Surely no other man in the whole southward-bound Canadian train could have been at once so ingenuous and so nonchalant. ...
— The Indiscreet Letter • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... well-tried friends as Reed and herself could face what lay beneath it, without sentimental fears. They had taken one such plunge together; they both preferred to avoid another, if they could, and yet better to flounder through the ice than to keep away from it entirely. Therefore Olive's tone was nonchalant, as she reported,— ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... should—on the whole. Pulse is poor. That's the worst sign." She picked up the hand lying outside the coverlet and put her finger-tips to the wrist, doing it with the easy nonchalant carelessness with which she might have seized an inanimate object, yet knowing exactly what she was about. "H'm! Fifty-six! That's pretty low. If we could get it above sixty—but still!" Dropping the hand with the same indifference, yet continuing to know what she was ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... the beautiful machine was an old farm wagon, and in front of that were four horses. On the seat of the wagon sat a nonchalant-looking farmer who seemed to take ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... fated to have embarked upon this ill-starred voyage. Herded here in this cabin, with brigands like pirates of old guarding them. Waiting now to be marooned on an uninhabited asteroid roaming in space. A sense of responsibility swept me. I swung upon Miko. He stood with a nonchalant grace, lounging against the wall with a cylinder dangling in his hand. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science April 1930 • Various
... dinner of the 'Printers' Pension Society,' when the stewards, of whom I was one, received him in the drawing-room of the 'Albion,' in Aldersgate Street. Immediately after his entrance he posted himself in a nonchalant fashion with his back to the mantelpiece, and his thumbs in his waistcoat pockets, an attitude Thackeray was fond of assuming, and began to chat familiarly with those near him. In a minute or two he asked if Mr. Leech was present (Leech was one of the stewards), as if he would like to make ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... never existed between her and the young lady; she was too eccentric and ill-mannered. Just imagine, Jonker, she came to our house one evening when she knew there was to be dancing and music. Yes, she dropped in, as nonchalant as possible, in a dark merino dress, fastened up to the neck, with a turn-down collar and a silk neckerchief—just for all the world like a boy. And her boots—they might have belonged to some plough-boy. Upon my word, ...
— Major Frank • A. L. G. Bosboom-Toussaint
... the Ludovisi gardens a wonderfully beautiful girl, strolling in the train of this conspicuous couple. He looked for her now, and in a moment she appeared, following her companions with the same nonchalant step as before, and leading her great snow-white poodle, decorated with motley ribbons. The elder lady offered the two young men a sufficiently gracious salute; the little old gentleman bowed and smiled with extreme ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... indifferent, heedless, inattentive, regardless, lax, incautious, remiss, inconsiderate, nonchalant, neglectful, unwary, imprudent, indiscreet, improvident, reckless, desultory, perfunctory, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... he was actually in the room, his cold appraising eyes upon her, that the poor woman realized that her position towards him had changed. She could not summon up the nonchalant distant civility which, according to her ideas, was sufficient for her country neighbors in general, and the Pratts ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... to induce those gentlemen to stay to supper, the other evening, and it was quite late before they took their leave. Dr. Addison I was very much pleased with, and so were all the rest. Mr. M——, none of us fell desperately in love with. He is too nonchalant and indifferent, besides having a most peculiar pronunciation which grated harshly on my ears, and that no orthography could fully express. "Garb," for instance, was distorted into "gairb," "yard" into "yaird," "Airkansas," ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... He took no note of external objects as they flashed with almost lightning rapidity past the car windows, and he seemed equally unconscious of the presence of his fellow passengers. His dress and manner, as well as his nonchalant, graceful attitude, and even the delicate poise of his cigar, were all indicative of wealth and refinement, and of a courtesy innate, not acquired. His head was slightly thrown back, and with half-closed, dreamy eyes, he watched the coils of blue smoke wreathing and curling above ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... man in my life," declared Carter, with a return of his nonchalant manner. "You seem to be ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... know. I dare say they will last our time," Westray answered in a nonchalant and reassuring tone; for he remembered that, as regards the tower, he had been specially cautioned to let sleeping dogs lie, but he thought of the Ossa heaped on Pelion above their heads, and conceived a mistrust of the wide crossing-arches which he never ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... advantage; his turban was a mass of sparkling diamonds, and his whole person seemed loaded with jewels. His sturdy body-guard, all armed with double-barrelled rifles, stood close behind his chair, and were the only soldiers in the tent; the nonchalant way in which he addressed the rajah, with folded arms and unbended knee, betokened the unbounded power he possesses in the state. Perhaps it is not very politic in him to arrogate so much to himself in a land where every man's hand is against him, in proportion as he is ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... logical reasons Arnold made no reply to this reasoning, and, seeing he remained silent, Colston resumed his ordinary nonchalant, good-humoured tone, ...
— The Angel of the Revolution - A Tale of the Coming Terror • George Griffith
... out to me, but, deceived by his coolness and nonchalant tones, and by the lethargy a glimpse of the fish, I gave little heed. of the fish, I gave little heed. I knew very well that, if I had struck a fish that held me down in that way, I should have been going through a regular war-dance on that circle of ...
— Locusts and Wild Honey • John Burroughs
... man, so cool and nonchalant a minute or so before, fanned himself with the pocket-handkerchief, and turned red, and went white, and went red, and turned white half a dozen times, in twice as many beats of his ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... mistaken request; an altogether unwise emotion. Better that he had remained at the window, and drawled out a nonchalant denial. But he was apt to be as earnestly genuine on the surface as he was in reality. It set Lady Hartledon wondering; and she ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... sound nonchalant but he was finding it difficult to bear up under this barrage of disapproving eyes—particularly two ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... and I found that the nonchalant and care-free attitude of the average British officer was really a mask and simulated to keep his mind off the whole beastly business: this great big dirty job which white ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... there because he elected to be there. He is going to stay by until the thing is done, or he is. He says very little about it. He is uncomfortable if any one else says anything about it. He is rather matter of fact, indeed, and nonchalant as long as things are being done fairly. But there is nothing calm about his attitude when his opponent hits below the belt. It was a sense of fair play, as well as humanity, that made England rise to the call of Belgium. It is England's sense of fair play that makes her ...
— Kings, Queens And Pawns - An American Woman at the Front • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... her, and she found it hard to credit the fact that it was he, the hard, nonchalant man of the world she knew, who had spoken. She clutched his ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... opponent, who was sliding slowly forward in his chair, and for the length of a minute no sound but the guarded breathing of the onlookers could be heard. This was broken by a nervous cough from the rear of the room, and the faces assumed their ordinary nonchalant expressions, their rugged lines heavily shadowed in the light of the flickering oil lamps, while the shuffling of cards and the clink of silver became audible. Hopalong Cassidy had objected to insulting ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... His manner was nonchalant to the last degree. Tommy Beresford was one of those young Englishmen not distinguished by any special intellectual ability, but who are emphatically at their best in what is known as a "tight ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... sign of having heard her. Throwing away the cigar he was smoking he asked in the most nonchalant manner: ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... juridic casuistry, of rhetorical pyrotechnics, and at its touch, the latent floods of pity gushed; people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide auditory a woman sobbed. Habitues of a celebrated Salon des Etrangers recall the tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who, apparently calm, nonchalant, debonair, gambled desperately; "while his right hand, resting easily inside the breast of his coat, clutched and lacerated his flesh till his nails dripped with blood." With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr. Dunbar sat as participant in this judicial ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... down a corridor, and out of the entrance that gave on the cross street—then his pace quickened. He traversed the block, crossed the road, turned the corner, and a minute later was approaching the house she had designated. It was one of a row. His pace slowed to a nonchalant stroll again. It was still quite light, and he was by no means the only pedestrian on the street; a moment's preliminary, even if cursory, examination of the exterior would not be amiss! Counting the numbers ahead of him, he had already located the house. He frowned a little. A light burned in ...
— The Further Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... to this favored youngster a "mount" and a temporary staff position. The boy's spirits and fun seem to jar on Rayner's nerves. He regards him blackly as he rides gracefully towards the battalion commander, and with decidedly nonchalant ease of manner and an "off-hand" salute that has an air about it of saying, "I do this sort of thing because one has to, but it doesn't really mean anything, you know," Mr. ...
— The Deserter • Charles King
... nonchalant. He is not at all nervous. He never had any nerves. He is never seduced into a flurry. He is never put out—unless put out of doors. He is cool—cool as a cucumber. He is calm—"calm as a smile from Lady Bury." He ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Dumbell Kopje. From our left-front place we could see a lot of Boers clustered under the hill, pasted, like swarming bees, up against the lee of it, while the naval gun's shells—for he evidently had a nonchalant idea that there was some one about there—went flying overhead and bursting beyond. This was very irritating to watch, and I was glad to be sent back to "whisper a word in his ear." Making a hasty sketch of the hill, I galloped back and presented ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... light that look passed between them. It penetrated Tewfick's nonchalant guard and brought the unaccustomed color to his olive cheeks. His handsome eyes turned uneasily aside. A girl's pique perhaps, at the situation, her last defiance of his power,—but for all his reassurance there was something deeper in that look, something tenable, accusing, which ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... proposition looking to an agreement as to who should go on the diplomatic mission. I was the youngest and naturally took refuge behind my years, yet perfectly conscious that, in spite of the indifferent and nonchalant attitude assumed, all three of us foremen were equally anxious for the chance. Matters remained undecided; but the next day at dinner, Lovell having met us before reaching the railroad, the question arose who should go up to Miles City. Dave ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... quite so placidly nonchalant as in ordinary; still, he was by far the most trying visitor that Ethelberta had lately faced, and she could not get above the stage—not a very high one for the mistress of a house—of feeling her personality to be inconveniently in the ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... beautifully-shaded walks can be so called. The city in its development has laid out alleys and boulevards instead of merely making ways, with the result that in spite of brilliant sky and burning sun, coolness and shadow are ever to be had. The Cannebire, with its blue sky, glowing foliage and gay, nonchalant, heterogeneous crowds, reminds me of the Rambla of Barcelona. Indeed, the two cities have many points of resemblance. Marseilles is greatly changed from the Marseilles I visited twenty-five years ago, to say nothing of Arthur Young's description ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... flashed close to us, and all around we could hear the killers blowing, their short, sharp hisses sounding like sudden escapes of steam. The killers were a source of anxiety, for a boat could easily have been capsized by one of them coming up to blow. They would throw aside in a nonchalant fashion pieces of ice much bigger than our boats when they rose to the surface, and we had an uneasy feeling that the white bottoms of the boats would look like ice from below. Shipwrecked mariners drifting ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... assuming its normal tilt. She held small Pete by one chubby hand, and with a wry face he was licking out an absurd little red tongue at least twice each moment, as if uncertain as to whether his olfactory or gustatory nerves had been offended. Billy was standing with the nonchalant unconcern of one strong of stomach, and the four other little Poteets, ranging in size from Shoofly, on the floor, to Tobe, the buried, were shuffling their bare feet in the dust with evident impatience to be off to gloat over the ...
— Rose of Old Harpeth • Maria Thompson Daviess
... emotions might at times return, And smould'ring fires leap up an hour and burn; But never yet had I transgressed God's law, By looking on the man I had resigned, With any hidden feeling in my mind, Which she, his wife, my friend, might not have known He was but little altered. From his face The nonchalant and almost haughty grace, The lurking laughter waiting in his eyes, The years had stolen, leaving in their place A settled sadness, which was not despair, Nor was it gloom, nor weariness, nor care, But something like the vapour o'er the skies Of Indian summer, beautiful ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... to me, and at the same time the sauce-dish was uncomfortably near my neck, and directly under my nose. This was too nonchalant, and my surprise was still greater when the servant, in an unnatural and gruff voice, said, "Do you want any of this stuff?" I looked up at the man, and recognized a twinkle in a familiar eye, and as the twinkle was accentuated by a powerful ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... of the maid's wage of three dollars for cooking and serving dinner and washing up the dishes. If Helen had engaged Mrs. Finn, everything would be all right. She knew them and she would wait. Still, he didn't like putting anybody off—he was neither quite too poor nor quite too affluent to be nonchalant in his ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... generally in the brigade as "Beauty," and the appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved. His face, with as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's, was at once handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant with a certain latent recklessness, under the impassive calm ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VI. • Various
... Get the cards. Let us tell our fortunes, eh?" The three girls gather about the table; the other two shuffle and cut. The cards turn out well for them. Carmen watches them. After a moment she reaches for the pack. She is very nonchalant about it, and glances at Jose as she shuffles the cards. Then she sits half upon the table and cuts. A glance! a moment of sudden fear! she has cut death for herself! The blow has come to her in her most reckless moment. After an instant's pause she sings with a ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... always, but more so now in the pathos of her helplessness. Somewhat perfunctorily, because in his ignorance of women he thought that it would please her, and also because vaguely something human and elemental had suddenly roused his pulses, he relinquished his nonchalant attitude, and came a step nearer ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... generally in the Brigades as "Beauty." The appellative, gained at Eton, was in no way undeserved; when the smoke cleared away that was circling round him out of a great meerschaum bowl, it showed a face of as much delicacy and brilliancy as a woman's; handsome, thoroughbred, languid, nonchalant, with a certain latent recklessness under the impressive calm of habit, and a singular softness given to the large, dark hazel eyes by the unusual length of the lashes over them. His features were exceedingly fair—fair as ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... in the pocket was clear and pure, but it was full of small "wigglers." We tried to dip up a pail which should be free from them. The Major, seeing our efforts, took a cup and without looking drank it down with the nonchalant remark, "I haven't seen any wigglers." The Pai Utes had killed some rabbits, which they now skinned and cooked. I say cooked, but perhaps I should say warmed. Dexterously stripping off the skins they slit open the abdomen, removed the entrails, and, after squeezing ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... as they entered the glittering dining-room, and stood frowning till the head-waiter ran respectfully up to them, and ushered them with sweeping bows to a table, which they had to themselves. Bartley ordered their dinner with nonchalant ease, beginning with soup and going to black coffee with dazzling intelligence. While their waiter was gone with their order, he beckoned with one finger to another, and sent him out for a paper, which ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... habitual expression of the eyes kindly and sympathetic, but as he grew heated in talk, they sparkled like fire; the curves of the mouth bespoke an interesting mixture of finesse, grace, and geniality. His bearing was nonchalant enough, but there was naturally in the carriage of his head, especially when he talked with action, much dignity, energy, and nobleness. It seemed as if enthusiasm were the natural condition for his voice, for his ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... is mine, therefore,' he said, endeavoring to assume a nonchalant air of indifference. 'Would you still win it back, Sergius? And the sesteria also? Well, there is that vineyard of yours on ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... the gipsy music was playing; the first fiddle was really not bad: and the nonchalant rogue-humour of his countenance did not belie his alliance to that large family, which has produced "so many blackguards, but never ...
— Servia, Youngest Member of the European Family • Andrew Archibald Paton
... broad disgust, I could not tell. Perhaps it was both. Very suddenly he wheeled upon Kennedy. His voice became low and vibrant with feeling. Here was none of the steeled self-control of Manton, the deceptive outer mask which Werner used to cover his thoughts, the nonchalant, cold frankness ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... in the corridor. Antinea immediately fell back into the nonchalant pose in which I had first seen her. One had to see such a transformation to believe ...
— Atlantida • Pierre Benoit |
