"Absently" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his boot and sock, empties half a pint of sand out of them, and pulls up his trouser-leg. His leg is sheathed to the knee in dust and sweat; he absently scrapes it with his knife, and presently he amuses himself by moistening a strip with his forefinger and shaving it, as if he were vaguely curious to see if he is ...
— Children of the Bush • Henry Lawson
... Margaret absently, wondering why there had been no letter for her that morning—and this was the third day too! Could Gilbert be ill? Or was he flirting with some other girl and forgetting her? Margaret swallowed a big lump in her throat, and resolved that she ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1902 to 1903 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... Donald, absently, "but there are several things about the fellow that I don't understand. To begin with, he is talking to those other chaps through an interpreter. Then he does not gesticulate, while most Indian orators depend more upon signs than words for effect. He stands with his ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... not both feet on that fascinating Aquilina, whose heavy breathing suggests an analogy with the sounds of a storm about to burst," replied Emile, absently engaged in the harmless amusement of winding and unwinding Euphrasia's hair, "you would be ashamed of your inebriated garrulity. Both your systems can be packed in a phrase, and reduced to a single idea. ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... was standing before the window, watching the carriage drive away, and playing absently with one of her ear-rings as she ...
— A Fair Barbarian • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Percival listened absently to the talk and watched Miss Milbrey, now one of the group in the dining-room. Presently he saw her take a lighted candle from one of the laughing girls and go ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... "Thanks," Plemponi said absently. "Always doing that. Confusing them...." He dropped the tray where it belonged, shoved his hands into the chef's cleaning recess and waved them around, then came back, still looking absent-minded, and stopped ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... Mackhai absently, as he took up his paper, and the breakfast went on to the end, but to Max it was anything ...
— Three Boys - or the Chiefs of the Clan Mackhai • George Manville Fenn
... Drew replied absently. Better leave that decision to Nye; he knew the country and the situation. "You ask about the cart, Callie, but don't make it definite. Have to see how ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... fell to watching for the lights at New Madrid, her elbows resting on the rail against which she was leaning, and the soft curve of her chin sunk in the palms of her hands. She wondered absently what Judith would have said of this river-man. She smiled a little dubiously. Judith had certainly vindicated the sincerity of her convictions regarding the importance of family, inasmuch as in marrying Ferris she had married her own second cousin. She nestled her chin a little closer ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... Nora (absently). Maybe. (HELMER takes a bunch of keys out of his pocket and goes into the hall.) Torvald! what are you ...
— A Doll's House • Henrik Ibsen
... put the recommendation of the son and master on the same line as that of the coal. Mr. Headley answered the business matters absently, and ended by saying he would think on ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... coiffured brown head bent low over hands that played absently with their jewels. "To a woman of my sort, monsieur, life is not life without love. I lived once for a little time, then love was taken out of my life. When my sorrow had spent itself, I knew that I must find love again if I were to go on living. What was I to do? ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... you happen to pass there on a warm evening, you may see a young woman, rather handsome, sitting sidewise on the outer basement steps, looking absently before her, straight-backed, upright, with her hands clasped about one knee, with her skirt sweeping away: a picture of Alsace. I have never been able to find ...
— In Madeira Place - 1887 • Heman White Chaplin
... Willy Cameron sat on the bench, bent and staring ahead. Jinx brought the stick, and, receiving no attention, insinuated a dripping body between his knees. He patted the dog's head absently. ...
— A Poor Wise Man • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... concluded his husky sermon. The scanty congregation, who had been sitting, stolidly immobile in their stiff, Sunday clothes, shuffled to their feet, and the pewful of school children, in clamorous chorus, intoned the final hymn. Anthony stood near the organ, absently contemplating, while the rude melody resounded through the church, Rosa's deft manipulation of the key-board. The rugged lines of his face were relaxed to a vacant, thoughtful limpness, that aged his expression ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... customers had gone from the little Cafe du Bon Vieux Temps but a woman in a shabby opera-cloak—a woman with tragic eyes, and half a lung. She sat fingering her glass of beer absently, though the clock over the desk pointed to a quarter to midnight, and at midnight beer-drinkers are no longer desired in the Bon Vieux Temps. But she was a stranger; it was concluded that ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... absently. "Do you remember, when you played your celebrated game of chess with Paoli Boy, the Sicilian, in the presence of the King and Court, that it was upon my right arm that the King leant?" Then after ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 27, March 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... little Chelwoods was ever a quarter as pretty as that gypsy child, even when they were babies," continued his wife gazing absently at the rose, "and ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... Smith murmured absently. What was a cold compared to the fact that she needed two dollars and a half? "Say, I wonder if I could get a little loan for a few days? You know I bought this suit on the installment plan and I'm two weeks behind on it. The collector was around yesterday and said he'd have to take ...
— The Man from the Bitter Roots • Caroline Lockhart
... moved his head sideways absently. Nostromo pointed after the Goulds' carriage, nearing the grass-grown gate in the old town wall that was like a wall of ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... said slowly, with something very like a sigh. "He was the only man I ever knew who made me do what I did not want to do and made me wish to be something better than I was," she added absently. ...
— Gordon Keith • Thomas Nelson Page
... seeing the meaning of the move until they were actually on the polished dancing-floor. Owing to the darkness of the December afternoon, the large empty room was lit up as brilliantly as at night. For a minute they stood on the threshold, looking absently at the palms grouped in the corners and the garlands festooning the walls. It was only then that Pruyn saw the motive of her coming; and for an instant he forgot his worry in the perception that this woman had divined ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... early, saying "good-night everybody" rather absently. She climbed up the stairs wearily. When her mother slipped away from the others, having started the victrola and urged them to dancing, she found Gloria ready for bed but standing before her window, looking out at the first stars. Mrs. Gaynor discovered in her little daughter a new, grave-eyed ...
— The Everlasting Whisper • Jackson Gregory
... wandered out towards the currant-bushes and came to rest absently on Thomas Jefferson's big, white bulk—"I wonder if it hurts very much." She meant, to starve. A long vista of food-less days opened before her, and in their contemplation the weight in her ...
— Rebecca Mary • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... answer or turn. He laid his book on the counter and passed out, his well-shod feet sounding flatly on the floor. On the staircase he paused and gazing absently ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... on, rather absently, "at this very moment the doctor is probing the wounds in your back ...
— Jimbo - A Fantasy • Algernon Blackwood
... replied absently. "F'r instance, Aunt Julia, I don't see what you want to go walking with Newland Sanders for, when you said yourself you wished he was dead, or somep'n, after there got to be so muck talk in the family and everywhere about his sayin' all that about the ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... alone as they pass joyous by, Nor note my presence; or, if they should see, Their eyes but rest upon me absently, Then turn away. They all are strange to me, And I to them. More lonely is my mood Here, than in Nature's ...
— The Song of the Exile—A Canadian Epic • Wilfred S. Skeats
... about," said Percival as he turned a leaf. He looked absently at the next page. "I don't want to interfere ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... responded Miss Ethel absently, her mind so full of what they had just decided to do that she could think of nothing else. "Then you will tell Godfrey? I don't think there is any need ...
— The Privet Hedge • J. E. Buckrose
... he answered absently, looking out over her head, as he stood upon the rug in the attitude which the best men will assume in ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... leaned back and laughed aloud at the vision he had been evoking—laughed with so joyous a relish in his reminiscences that the drawn, impatient face of his listener relaxed a little. He drew a long breath, he even smiled a little absently. ...
— Hillsboro People • Dorothy Canfield
... his frugal dinner when Richard entered. "If you can't hit it to be in at your meals," said Mr. Shackford, helping himself absently to the remaining chop, "perhaps you had better ...
— The Stillwater Tragedy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... Prince Andrew absently. "One thing I would do if I had the power," he began again, "I would not take prisoners. Why take prisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... absently. He was thinking that on the boulevards the newsboys might now be crying a later edition of the papers than that which he held, an edition with still more details. He saw them surrounded in the darkened street by quiet, ...
— The Summons • A.E.W. Mason
... at her the same way, sort of absently scratching his head; but had to give it up, and said he didn't know—"must have been something that ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... pardons," he said to the hostess absently. "It is a great pleasure to be here,—somehow I thought I knew that man. I am sure I ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... through the lane slowly and absently like a woman in a dream. When she came to the gap in the fence where the lane ran into the orchard she lifted her wan, drooping face and saw Eric, sitting in the shadow of the wood at the other side of the orchard with his bowed head in ...
— Kilmeny of the Orchard • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... married and both are happy and well," she replied absently; "but we can talk of them on some other occasion. I want us to speak of something else ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... where?" Maisie responded a little absently and very excitedly. She gave a wild manual brush ...
— What Maisie Knew • Henry James
... plainly a handful," said Ashe, rather absently. Then the memory of Kitty's entry recurred to them ...
— The Marriage of William Ashe • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... absently into his coat pockets. "We'll miss that train as sure as—— Where in the nation's that pipe o' mine got to?" He rummaged despairingly. "Oh, I forgot! Susan Winters said I wasn't to take it, for fear the smoke might be bad for the orphant's eyes. D'ye ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... silly," said Nan absently, as her eyes wandered down the double line of shining rails to the spot where they disappeared in the distance. "I wonder if that mean old train is going to be ...
— Nan Sherwood at Palm Beach - Or Strange Adventures Among The Orange Groves • Annie Roe Carr
... didn't mean those things,' he said, absently. 'Thanks for bringing them, by the way. That's the stove, I suppose; cartridges, this one, by the weight. You got the rigging-screws all right, I hope? They're not really necessary, of course' (I nodded vacantly, and felt a little hurt); 'but they're simpler than lanyards, and you ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... as I had left her, but now her eyes were fixed upon the ground and her face once more was brooding absently as though no such a man as I had ever been. It came into my mind that already she had forgotten me, the plaything of an hour, who had served her turn and ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... over to the windows and threw them open. A gush of warm air, humid and redolent of the streets, invaded the room, together with the roar of traffic from its near-by arteries. Maitland rested his elbows on the sill and leaned out, staring absently into the night; for by now it was quite dark. Without concern, he realized that he would be late at dinner. No matter; he would as willingly miss it altogether. For the time being he was absorbed in vain speculations about an unknown woman whose sole claim upon his consideration ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... Professor Brierly nodded absently. He was gazing about the room. Then he walked to the library table, on which lay the revolver. He stooped over it and ...
— Death Points a Finger • Will Levinrew
... many here," said Dr. Ewen cheerfully, as he rose from his table crowded with books. "We're all pretty simple at Oxford. We ought to be of course—even our guests. It's a place of training." He dropped a Greek word absently, putting away his papers the while, and thinking of the subject with which he had just been busy. Constance opened the door again to make her escape, but the sound recalled Dr. ...
— Lady Connie • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to dine that day, the ladies of the household noticed that he was unusually serious. As he sat after dinner, absently playing a silent tune on the table-cloth, his wife touched his hand with her napkin, and said, "What was it so ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... her head to come over and hear some more, for herself, you will not take it amiss? It will be for love of the child." Then, as a correction to what might have seemed a stint of courtesy:—"And for the pleasure of a visit to you, ma'am." Said old Maisie absently:—"I hope she will." And then Widow Thrale saw that all this talking had been quite ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... out the tea. Mr. Prince, highly self-conscious, suggested that he should make himself useful by distributing the crumpets while they were hot. George, highly selfconscious, accepted a crumpet. Mr. Prince chatted; George responded in a brave worldly fashion; Mr. Haim said 'Yes,' 'Ye-es,' very absently. ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... around. It was the first of May. Joe sat at his desk absently fingering a stack of paper slips. They were reports from the various assembling shops advising him of the number of bolts of certain styles and sizes used in those respective shops that day. He was supposed to post these amounts in a stock ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... it?' said John, looking absently at an awkward squad of young men who were drilling in ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... He knew of none stronger than those he had used. He stood for some moments battled and helpless, staring absently at the face of his watch, and wondering what he ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... fond of her, ain't you?" asked Lydia absently. She was wondering if aunt Phebe would ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... turning to his writing-table when Atchison had gone, and absently picking up a bronze paper-weight which lay there—"put it into his head to fire a dinner at me the moment he knew ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... my legal adviser had taken his leave, looking absently at the newly-engrossed will, when I heard a sharp knock at the house-door which I thought I recognized. In another minute Rothsay's bright face enlivened my dull room. He had returned from ...
— Little Novels • Wilkie Collins
... would rather never have any breakfast!" She took up the paper bag again, and explored it with an eager hand, while she stared absently at Cornelia. "Ah! I thought there was one left! What mites of things." She put the last ginger-snap into her mouth, and with a flying kiss to Cornelia as she passed, she flashed out of the door, and down ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... inhabited, and could you have pushed aside the creaking door, you might have seen an old woman, wrinkled and gray, sitting by the silent hearth, stirring the dull fire, or looking absently from the window. ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... with the servants, and, in fact, with everyone, but never did she come upon a clue which promised to lead to a solution of the diamond difficulty. Once she penetrated into a turret room, and came unexpectedly upon the Prince, who was sitting on the window-ledge, looking absently out on the broad and smiling valley that lay for miles below the castle. He sprang to his feet and stared so fiercely at the intruder that the girl's heart failed her, and she had not even the presence of mind to turn ...
— Jennie Baxter, Journalist • Robert Barr
... woman, seated at his brother's side, had been doing and saying. With a firm determination no longer to slight his plate, he turned his attention to it, but had scarcely eaten two mouthfuls when his treacherous thoughts stole off to Katie again. Absently laying his knife and fork down, he was soon unconscious of all that was going on ...
— A Lover in Homespun - And Other Stories • F. Clifford Smith
... drove her at last almost insensibly towards the low, wide wall facing the unquiet sea. Here she sat down, still absorbed in her thoughts, her gaze resting absently on the incoming tide below. She was conscious of a strange feeling of communion with the ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... remarked the Professor absently; then pushed back his chair to add briskly: "What does all this mean, you minx? I know that the woman is all right so far as a woman can be: but her confounded age and her looks and her unexpressed admiration. What are these to an old ...
— The Green Mummy • Fergus Hume
... Winton nodded absently. It was one of his minor fads to ignore his lineage, which ran decently back to a Colonial governor on his father's side, and to assert that he did not know his grandfather's middle name—which was accounted for by the very simple fact that the elder ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... some things, that's all," and the man stared absently at the steel wall. "I remember something about its orbit, since it is one thing that all I-P vessels have to steer clear of. Think I can figure it close enough so that we'll be able to find it in our ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... do it,' said Anthea, absently beginning to build a card-house for the Lamb—'mixing up what you're saying, I mean. We ought to practise doing it so as to be ready for mysterious occasions. We're talking about THAT,' she said to Jane and Robert, frowning, and ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit
... know," said Miss Rhys absently, her mind on her embroidery, and very much wishing she could return to it. "She was going to your house, I know, for one ...
— Five Little Peppers and their Friends • Margaret Sidney
... and as Rosalind told it her eyes took on the look Belle had described to her father. There was silence after she finished. Jack lay with his head on his arms, looking out on the river; Maurice was drawing beech leaves in his note-book, the discontent all gone from his face; Belle absently plaited the hem of her dress; while Katherine twisted a wreath of ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard
... up his hat,—she noticed it was a silk tile, and thought vaguely how incongruous it looked upon him, though she was used to little else among the students,—and jammed it absently down on his head, as he was accustomed to fasten on his tarpaulin during ...
— Sara, a Princess • Fannie E. Newberry
... "Five thousand dollars," she kept repeating to herself, greeting the teachers absently—"five thousand dollars." And then on the porch she was suddenly aware of the awaiting boy. She eyed him critically: black, fifteen, ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... The letter was absently sealed and addressed; there was no reason why the shaft should not go home. Yet she hesitated. It were better that she should read it ...
— A Touch Of Sun And Other Stories • Mary Hallock Foote
... with it—but absently and in a distrait manner, as becomes a man of affairs. There's nothing in the B's. I might devote my ardent youth to Bar-Room Glassware and Bottlers' Supplies. On the other hand, I might not. Similarly, while there is no doubt a bright ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... absently. "Miss Tedesco, this is Dr. Peter Forsythe, whom I told you about. Dr. Forsythe, this is Miss Donna Tedesco; she's the computer technician who ...
— Fifty Per Cent Prophet • Gordon Randall Garrett
... nothing, but absently doled out the last cabbage leaf to the rabbits in such small morsels, that they nibbled at his fingers as if they thought those part of the provender. Jessie was lost in a calculation of whether if Frances and she were to have no new frocks for a twelvemonth, ...
— Holiday Tales • Florence Wilford
... absently. He put out his huge foot and pushed the ground-glass door shut between his little den and the book-keepers, in their larger ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and Father Orin going home an hour or so ago. They had been out all night." He said this absently, with his eyes turning back to the ...
— Round Anvil Rock - A Romance • Nancy Huston Banks
... was annoyed that her daughter said nothing of the events of the morning, and soon went out again; Rosine and her father sat dreamily, he by the window, smoking, and she with an unread magazine before her. She looked absently about the room, with happy eyes, trying to recall the details of the scene between her and Daniel; her glance fell on her father's weary face, and its melancholy expression struck her sharply. She got up, and standing behind him, laid ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Fitzgerald pulled off a shoe, and carefully deposited it on the floor beside his chair. Private secretary to Rear Admiral Killigrew, retired; Karl Breitmann! He drew off the second shoe, and placed it, with military preciseness, close to the first. Absently, he rose, with the intention of putting the pair in the hall, but remembered before he got as far as the door that it was not customary in America to put one's shoes outside in the halls. Ultimately, they would have been stolen or have ...
— A Splendid Hazard • Harold MacGrath
... looking out absently over the soft, starlit landscape. She felt sorry for Mr. Middleton and sorry for Elsie Moss; and curiously enough those two were the two persons in the world in whom she had any real interest! Perhaps the latter wouldn't mind her ...
— Elsie Marley, Honey • Joslyn Gray
... said Betty absently. "Oh, Mrs. Smith, you can't have lost your thimble already. Why what's that you've ...
— The Incomplete Amorist • E. Nesbit
... From absently picking and choosing among the forks, and trying to drink his bouillon out of the cup in which it was served, to upsetting his glass of iced tea, he stumbled on in a dream of awkwardness; and when, to cover the tea mishap, Ardea, emulating ...
— The Quickening • Francis Lynde
... book over so that it lay upon its other side, and for a few moments occupied herself with similar futilities, having taken on the air of a person who makes things neat, though she produced no such actual effect upon them. "Of course you will," she repeated, absently. "You'll be as strong as you ever were; maybe stronger." She paused for a moment, not looking at him, then added, cheerfully, "So that you can fly around and find something ...
— Alice Adams • Booth Tarkington
... you," says the professor, absently. He is thinking! He has taken her hand, and held it, and dropped it again, all in ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... to wish it, I read his correspondence, while he absently twirled the poker in his hands, and ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 103, December 17, 1892 • Various
... she said, looking around absently at the few dishes. Then she folded her hands on the table's edge and sat silent, as though ...
— Barbarians • Robert W. Chambers
... the cuisine of Fleeter's Rents, might choose to wander thither. Philip, with the lamp in one hand and the tumbler of flowers in the other, put out his head and looked into the squalid depths below him, and having gazed there a while absently and with no object, drew back with a vague touch of pity upon him for the people who dwelt in so much squalor so near to healthy effort and reasonable competence. He could hardly have told as much, perhaps, but one pallid countenance, shining very dimly ...
— Young Mr. Barter's Repentance - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray
... she should mend it. I took her hand to kiss it, but she did not give me time, presenting her lips, burning with desire. I took her hand again, and it was just on the spot when the cousin came in. Manon held the piece of lace, and seemed to be waiting for my answer. I told her absently that I should be obliged if she would mend it when she had time, and with this ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... light on his puzzle, Ben turned into the stone gateway, and strode up to the east porch to let himself in as usual, with his latch key. As he was fitting it absently, all the while his mind more intent on Pickering and his changed demeanor than on his own affairs, he heard a little rustling noise that made him turn his head to see a tall figure spring down the veranda floor in haste to ...
— Five Little Peppers Grown Up • Margaret Sidney
... know is if Aunt Olivia is going to be married," said the Story Girl absently. "I can hardly believe it. But now that I think of it—Uncle Roger has been teasing her ever since she ...
— The Golden Road • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... absently. "I guess that's right." But his mind was plainly elsewhere. "When would you say would be the best time to do business with old Funeral-Clothes?" he asked after ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the orchestra steps and descend to his place. His face was clouded—very clouded; I had never seen him look thus before. He had no smile for those who greeted him. As he took his place beside Helfen, and the latter asked him some question, he stared absently at him, then answered with a look of ...
— The First Violin - A Novel • Jessie Fothergill
... came at last. He was to leave at three o'clock. After the noontide meal Ida's mother sat with them and they talked a little about America, Frau Werner exerting herself to give a cheerful tone to the conversation, and Randall answering her questions absently and without taking his eyes off Ida, who felt herself beginning to be seized with a nervous trembling. At last Frau Werner rose and silently left the room, looking back at them as she closed the door with eyes full of tears. Then as if by a common impulse ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 7 • Various
... her absently for a moment. "I suppose I had ought to hate you," she said, wearily; "you have made my life very black. Lucian Davlin will soon be ...
— Madeline Payne, the Detective's Daughter • Lawrence L. Lynch
... meet her at any other place which she might appoint. Cristel persisted in leaving it to me; she spoke absently, as if she was thinking all the time of something else. I could propose no better place, at the moment, than the spring in Fordwitch Wood. She consented to meet me there, on the next day, if seven o'clock in the morning would not be too early for me. My German habits had accustomed me to ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... clearly understood, definitely promised arrangement. Monpavon was to call for him at the club. From time to time the good Jenkins glanced at his watch, while applauding absently the bouquet of brilliant notes which the Wauters was pouring forth from her fairy lips, a bouquet costing three thousand francs, useless, like the other expenses of the evening, if the ...
— The Nabob • Alphonse Daudet
... him as he walks. Completely absorbed, he puts her aside, absently but gently, as if she were a kitten he ...
— The Flutter of the Goldleaf; and Other Plays • Olive Tilford Dargan and Frederick Peterson
... prince?" said Rogojin, absently, but a little surprised all the same "Still in your gaiters, eh?" He sighed, and forgot the prince next moment, and his wild eyes wandered over to Nastasia again, as though attracted in that direction by ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... delightfully restful. I love the cool green lights and the cool grey shadows of the woodlands in early summer," she remarked absently. ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... He turned and absently surveyed the land. His restlessness increased. He felt a strong desire for a larger freedom of space than that offered by the Gar, and it occurred to him that he might go ashore in the tender. He moved aft with this ...
— Wild Oranges • Joseph Hergesheimer
... absently. Then, to the spare man at the head of the table: "I have been next door, talking to the American Secretary of War. A dull fellow. Convinced, is he, that Arvania harbors only kind thoughts for this great stupid nation. They shall ...
— The Radiant Shell • Paul Ernst
... presence at the fifth turn. She nodded absently. Being immersed in the sea of conjecture regarding Warrington's behavior, the colonel's glare did not rouse in her the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... absently. He had the papers in his hand, and was running them over. Both men were pulling at their cigars with strong puffs, and the room was so vaporous with smoke that Steering was beginning to see very clearly indeed, as he went through the papers. They were couched ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... the time of day with a slightly asthmatic voice, drew the check toward him with the tips of his fingers, read it, cocked an eye at the indorsement, and counted out the money with a bored air. If silver entered into the transaction, he usually rang the last coin absently on the glass surface of ...
— Otherwise Phyllis • Meredith Nicholson
... mused upon this Ma Pettengill sorted the evening mail and to Lew Wee she now took his San Francisco newspaper, Young China, and a letter. Half an hour later Lew Wee brought wood to replenish the fire. He disposed of this and absently brushed the hearth with a turkey wing. Then he straightened the rug, crossed the room, and straightened on the farther wall a framed portrait in colour of Majestic Folly, a prize bull of the Hereford strain. Then he drew ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... Watson,' that those words will not be so helpful in this case as they were when your mistress was murdered," Dundee assured his parrot absently, for he was studying the peculiar situation from every angle. "Another question, Cap'n—why did the unknown bother to take my 'Who's Who' out of the bookcase, where I should normally have looked for it, and put ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... bad," said he, drawing the remnant of the shroud about him and leaning his jaw pensively on his hand. Then he put his left foot up on his knee and fell to scratching his anklebone absently with a rusty nail which he got out of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... wrathful disgust with that donkey he shifted angrily in his chair and his foot struck a bit of paper upon the floor. It rustled and the rustle attracted his attention. Absently he stepped and picked up the paper. It was the slip which had fallen from the Cabot, Bancroft and Cabot letter and was a check drawn to his order for fourteen thousand, three hundred and ten dollars and thirty-eight cents, his share of the ...
— Galusha the Magnificent • Joseph C. Lincoln
... the afternoon sunshine on the steps of his big colonial home looking absently out over the circular drive, and the quaint terraced garden, to the red-tiled roof of the garage beyond. But he was not thinking of the garage; he could not, in fact, even have told you the color of its vivid tiling. No! He had far more important things to think of than ...
— The Story of Leather • Sara Ware Bassett |
