"Furtive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... word, he was what one oftener hears of than meets,—a young gentleman. He was conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow-officer; they were talking about what it is far better not to—women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be overheard; for he cast ever and anon a furtive glance at his fair vis-a-vis and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him. At last the two soldiers came down to a whisper (the truth must be told), the one who got down at Slough, and was lost to posterity, bet ten pounds to three, ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... smallest boys in the party showed signs of a wistful desire to distinguish himself, and they turned their attention to him, pushing at his shoulders while he swung away from them, and hesitated dreamily. He was eventually induced to make furtive expedition, but it was only for a few yards. Then he paused, motionless, gazing with open mouth. The vociferous entreaties of Jimmie and the large boy had no ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane
... who, being hard of hearing, and therefore incapable of mingling in the conversation that ensued, regarded the new comer through her gold-bowed spectacles, during the remainder of the afternoon, with a furtive, but earnest attention which was quite embarrassing to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... the man at once hung his head below its previous level; the one necessary for business. It appeared as if he desired to be thought absorbed, with more than common fidelity, in his task. Being addressed, he glanced up, but with what seemed a furtive, diffident air, which sat strangely enough on his weather-beaten visage, much as if a grizzly bear, instead of growling and biting, should simper and cast sheep's eyes. He was asked several questions concerning the voyage—questions purposely referring to several particulars ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... she awake him, she began to move about the room. She put out the lamp and lighted her candle and set it where it would be screened from his face; and where the shadow of the chamber was heaviest, into that shadow she retired and in it she sat—with furtive look to see ...
— Bride of the Mistletoe • James Lane Allen
... casting a furtive glance behind him, to make sure that no one from Garthowen was following in his footsteps, "Morva, lass, where hast come from? I will begin to think thou art one of the spirits thy mother says she sees. I thought thee wast busy in the dairy ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine
... right, friend." He was small, furtive-eyed, and ingratiatingly friendly. "My name is Joe," he told them. "Actually, the name is Joao; but I prefer the archaic form with its flavor of more gracious times. Gentlemen, I couldn't help overhearing your ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley
... failure and defeat, but a figure to whom this world was the merest shadow hiding, as a shade hides a lamp, the life within. Wretched enough with its bad health, its growing corpulence, its weak mouth, its furtive desires, but despising, nevertheless, the strong, healthy figure beside it. Thurston was right. Men are not born to be free, but to fight, to the very death, for the imprisonment and destruction of all that is easiest and most physically active and most pleasant to ...
— The Captives • Hugh Walpole
... and take a terrible revenge. From this time Dierich and others that were about him noticed a change for the worse in Ghysbrecht Van Swieten. He became a moody irritable man. A dread lay on him. His eyes cast furtive glances, like one who expects a blow, and knows not from what quarter it is to come. Making others wretched had not made him happy. It ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... shortening sail, and in the course of an hour and a half had the most of it reduced—the top-sail yards down on the caps, the top-sails clewed up, the sheets hauled in, the main and fore peaks lowered, and the flying-jib down. While thus engaged the dawn advanced, and I cast an occasional furtive glance ahead in the midst of my labour. But now that things were prepared for the worst, I ran forward again and looked anxiously over the bow. I now heard the roar of the waves distinctly, and as a single ray of the rising sun gleamed over the ocean I saw —what! could ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... married long enough to know the sound of her husband's step, and she felt a thrill of joy and fear alternately. It might be he, and it might be a stranger! She was loath to look up, but at last gave a furtive glance, and met squarely the eyes of a large grizzly bear, who was seated upon ...
— Old Indian Days • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... a girl perhaps twenty years of age stepped just within the doorway, and stood there with eyes downcast, after one swift, furtive glance about her. Her whole appearance was that of dejection. Her soiled black gown, the cringing posture, the pallor of her face, proclaimed the abject ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... Wollaston stole a furtive glance at Miss Slome, which was an absurd parody on a glance of a man under similar circumstances, and Miss Slome, who had had experience ...
— By the Light of the Soul - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... is the appeal of man's immortal unity to the All-Father, from age to age, for knowledge sufficient for its hourly needs, since ever, back in the far dim ages of the earth, primeval man, beetle-browed, furtive and fashioned fearsomely, first felt the faint vibration of a Soul; and, like an awakened giant, that chief of human faculties, a Mind took form which, pressing on along the uncertain way, has scaled ...
— Valere Aude - Dare to Be Healthy, Or, The Light of Physical Regeneration • Louis Dechmann
... petition, or rather meek threat, led to another long silence. It was continued till they had nearly reached the shore. But, meantime, Rosa's furtive eyes scanned Christopher's face, and her conscience smote her at the signs of suffering. She felt a desire to beg his pardon with deep humility; but she suppressed that weakness. She hung her head with a pretty, sheepish air, and asked him if he could not think ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade
... not sure, though. We can only guess where Jack is concerned. He goes his own way always, tricky and furtive and lonelier than any other human being I have ever known. It is loneliness that looks out of his eyes, really, even when he is mocking and sneering," the ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... guiltily conscious of his other reason for certainty on this point. "Perhaps Isis has climbed down from her pedestal to stretch herself," and he smiled, but his eyes were anxious, and he shot a furtive glance toward ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... his blood stir. There was something dark and mysterious, stealthy, in the little scene. It was obvious the men did not want to draw attention, they were so quiet and furtive-seeming. And an eerie instinct prevented Aaron's going nearer to look. Instead, he swerved on to the Lungarno, and went along the top of the square, avoiding the little group in the centre. He walked ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... modern cities, wherein the face is a confused blur of features, but composed of incorrupt, sharply defined and symmetrical features, whose eye-sockets are so formed that it would be impossible for such eyes to squint and take furtive glances on this side and on that, but they must turn the whole head. The manners of that period are plain and fierce. The reverence exhibited is for personal qualities; courage, address, self-command, justice, strength, swiftness, a loud ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... letters. Once or twice when he looked him up he found him writing, and then the minister explained that he had promised to "correspond" for an organ of his sect in the Northwest; but he owned that there was no money in it. He was otherwise reticent and even furtive in his manner. He did not seem to go much about the city, but kept to his own room; and if he was writing of Venice it must have been chiefly from his acquaintance with the little court into which his windows looked. He affected the vice-consul as forlorn and helpless, and he pitied ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... lad's fingers closed around the rough hand of the captain a furtive look flashed from out Morgan's eyes. It was directed to Parks—they were both Barnegat men—and was answered by that surfman with a slow-falling wink. Tod saw it, and his face flushed. Certain stories connected with Archie rose in his mind; some out ...
— The Tides of Barnegat • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to behold your father's home? Do your young hearts yearn after the hearth of your childhood?" "After our fathers' home!" was Louis's emphatic reply. "After the home of our childhood!" was Catharine's earnest answer. Hector's lips echoed his sister's words, while a furtive troubled glance fell upon the orphan stranger; but her timid eye was raised to his young face with a trusting look, as she would have said. "Thy home shall be my home, thy ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... stir from her seat, but had continued with her head bent down over some work, only venturing at times to cast a furtive glance at her father and Ronald, to ascertain how they got on together. Mrs Armytage soon afterwards joined her, and continued equally silent, her countenance exhibiting still ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... Miriam!" he groaned. "Oh, I saw it plainly to-night, and, what is far more terrible and hard to bear, he saw it too! He was watching you from the corner of his furtive, downcast eye when he was speaking of going to Copenhagen, and a smile trembled around his mouth when you turned so pale—white as a poplar-leaf, Miriam, when the wind blows it over! If I were a woman I would cut out my heart rather than open it thus to the gaze of any man, far less ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... moreover admitted that he had changed his story—had for a whole year given up the "Osprey," and said the vessel was the "Themis," and finally returned to the "Osprey" again. All the strange circumstances of the Wagga-Wagga will, the Gibbes and Cubitt correspondence, the furtive transactions with the Orton family, the curious revelations of the commissions in South America and Australia, were acknowledged, and either left unexplained or explained in a way which was evasive, inconsistent, ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous
... ours. I have no fear that the truth upon any subject should injure my daughter's mind; it is falsehood that I dread. I dread that she should acquire preposterous notions of love, of happiness, from the furtive perusal of vulgar novels, or from the clandestine conversation of ignorant waiting-maids:—I dread that she should acquire, even from the enchanting eloquence of Rousseau, the fatal idea, that cunning and address are the natural ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... breakfast table next morning that we might almost have imagined ourselves in Chicago. A small, young priest with furtive brown eyes cowered at one of the side tables, and at another a broad-shouldered, unsmiling lady, dressed in black, with brows and a slight moustache to match, dispensed food to a sallow and shrinking object of preternaturally serious aspect who seemed to be her husband, and a little ...
— A Voyage of Consolation - (being in the nature of a sequel to the experiences of 'An - American girl in London') • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... the Colonel had been used to sit stood a little aloof, at a corner of the fireplace. Often one of the trio would eye it with furtive mournfulness, looking away again directly without a glance at ...
— Jerome, A Poor Man - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... his poisonous conjectures, he remained all unaware of the presence of a furtive, stooping figure which lurked behind the railings of the arcade at this point linking old Bond Street to Albemarle Street. Nor had the stooping stranger any wish to attract Gray's attention. Most of the shops ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... child, drowsed by the strong salt air and the rocking of the coach, the glimmering whitewashed houses on either hand went by like a procession in a dream. The figures and groups of men and women on the side-walks, too, had a ghostly, furtive air. They seemed to the boy to be whispering together and muttering. Now this was absurd; for what with the blare of the postillion's horn, the clatter of hoofs, the jolting and rumbling of wheels, the rattle ...
— Lady Good-for-Nothing • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... execute all his commands and if he succeeded in freeing himself from him unmolested, to sing a Te Deum to Saint Nicholas. An earnest prayer was on his lips. But he controlled himself, puffed like a steamboat, and in silence cast furtive ...
— Twenty-six and One and Other Stories • Maksim Gorky
... furtive backward glance, Pennold mounted the steps and rang the bell nervously. The door was opened from within so suddenly that it seemed as if the man who faced his visitor on the threshold must have been awaiting the summons. He stepped quickly out, ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... The furtive gleam of the half bottle of bourbon on Malone's dresser caught his eye. He'd had it sent up the night before, feeling the need of some medicinal refreshment. Now it winked at him. He ignored it ...
— The Impossibles • Gordon Randall Garrett
... his eyes beyond the fields of grass and corn, the nursery gardens, and an amphitheatre of solemn verdure in rising stages, was the Jungfrau, lifting from the clouds her summit, like a horn, white and pure with unbroken snow, to which was daily clinging a furtive ray of the still invisible rising sun. Then between the white and rosy Alp and the Alpinist a little dialogue took place regularly, which was ...
— Tartarin On The Alps • Alphonse Daudet
... She was an affectionate, house-wifely creature, who would have made the best of wives and mothers if it had been so ordained by Fortune, and something of her natural instincts found outlet in the furtive service she paid her sister, who became the empress of her soul. She darned and patched the tattered hangings with a wonderful neatness, and the hours she spent at work in the chamber were to her almost as sacred as hours spent at religious duty, or as those nuns and novices give to ...
— A Lady of Quality • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... minutes after he had stepped on to the wooden platform, Mr. Hamilton Fynes showed no particular impatience to continue his journey. He stood in the shadow of one of the sheds, looking about him with quick furtive glances, as though anxious to assure himself that there was no one around who was taking a noticeable interest in his movements. Having satisfied himself at length upon this point, he made his way to the London and North Western Railway Station, and knocked at the door of the station-master's ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rolled his tobacco over in his mouth, and cast a furtive glance at the mate, but he did not presume to hazard any further manifestations of his disposition ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... seemed huddled together in gloom about the houses, the vines appeared to ooze on the walls, and at one end, where the window-shutters were always closed and barred, a great willow drooped and shivered; in winter the stone walls showed naked and grim among the gaunt trees and furtive shrubs. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... cold, sleety rain was falling. The lights from saloons and pawn-shops fell upon their faces—faces haggard and gaunt with misery, or bloated with disease and sin. Some stared before them fixedly; some gazed about with furtive and hungry eyes as they shuffled on. Here and there a policeman stood in the shelter, swinging his club and watching them as they passed. Music called to them from dives and dance-halls, and lighted signs and flaring- colored pictures tempted them ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... in every school, there was the sinister minority, always huddling in corners, full of mean silences and furtive leering. And their half-heard words, half-understood phrases,—a gesture, a look that silenced and perplexed her—these the child brought also to her mother, sitting at her ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... day's doings, there was some amusement in contrasting the behaviour of different people, some—of whom Mr. Ryder was the type—speaking to him freely in his own person, others leaving him as an unrecognised shop-boy; and a third favouring him with a horrid little furtive nod, which he liked least of all. But though awkward and embarrassed at first, use soon hardened him, and made the customers indifferent, so that by the spring he had begun to be useful, and to feel no ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... this nice boy, would one day be the head of a household, and of a table such as this! Yes, it would assuredly arrive! Everything happened. And the mother of that household? Would it be she? Her imagination leaped far into the future, as she exchanged a quiet, furtive smile with Mrs. Orgreave, and she tried to see herself as another Mrs. Orgreave, a strenuous and passionate past behind her, honoured, beloved, teased, adored. But she could not quite see herself thus. Impossible that she, with her temperament so feverish, restive, and peculiar, should ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... reappeared and behind him shuffled a native. Clad only in a dirty loin-cloth, his brown skin was wrinkled in scaly folds upon his chest and belly; his face was like an ancient tortoise; the small lack-lustre eyes were bloodshot and furtive; the limbs were almost fleshless. He squatted upon the ground and with lowered lids appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of a white man's table leg. Zu Pfeiffer regarded the man as one would a stray dog and nodded to the sergeant, who ...
— Witch-Doctors • Charles Beadle
... Ramper, blowing his sickly breath into my very ear, "There's a bloke yere as knows suthin' good for Lincoln. Up in the corner there. Let's sit down." Within a minute I found myself talking to a queer, battered man, who bent moodily over his glass of gin and stole furtive glances at me with bleared, sullen eyes. His blood was charged with bile, and he could not prevent the sudden muscular twitchings of his hands. His knuckles were swollen, and his fingers were twisted slightly. Evidently he was diseased to the very bone through alcoholic excesses. He was dressed ...
— The Chequers - Being the Natural History of a Public-House, Set Forth in - a Loafer's Diary • James Runciman
... kind of living soul is thinkable or conceivable apart from the unfathomable duality. The false philosophy which finds its ideal in an imaginary "parent" of the universe whose goodness is absolute is a philosophy conceived under the furtive influence of the power of evil. For the essence of the power of evil is opposition to the movement of life; and no false ideal has ever done so much injury to the free expansion of life as has been done by this conception of a "parent" of the universe ...
— The Complex Vision • John Cowper Powys
... relapsed into his former manner—one of condescension and thin offence to nearly every one about him. But all the time the major was studying him, and saw into him deeper than his mother or Hester—descried a certain furtive anxiety in the youth's eyes when he was silent, an unrest as of trouble he would not show. "The rascal has been doing something wrong," he said to himself; "he is afraid of being found out! And found out he is sure to be; he has ...
— Weighed and Wanting • George MacDonald
... Magna descended the stairway with deliberation. His eyes twitched from the sobbing woman to Lord Rokesle, and then back again, in that furtive way Orts had of glancing about a room, without moving his head; he seemed to lie in ambush under his gross brows; and whatever his thoughts may have been, he ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called 'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up one ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... quite possible for me to enlarge upon the subject of night life in Prague, but discretion advises me not to do so; this is a side of Prague which you must find out for yourself. When after a good dinner you proceed to draw those furtive covers in the region between the Town Hall and the "Powder Tower," you may pick up the scent which, I maintain, hangs about there—that of rather spicy wickedness. I do not mean anything offensive in this; in fact, everything is conducted ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... foreground. A few men were also present, sitting with their bodies hanging forward, their hats tightly clutched between their knees, their eyes fixed on the floor. The women and children, on the contrary, followed every movement of the young women on the platform with furtive eagerness. ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... stole these furtive glances at my grandmother, half fearing that they were wrong, I saw only a calm lake, whose shores were low, and over which the sun hung unbroken, so that the least star was clearly reflected. It had an atmosphere of solemn twilight tranquillity, and so completely did its unruffled surface ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... portion of the officers in garrison at Pampeluna; for there, when the season permitted, the two pretty, black-eyed daughters of Master Basilio were wont to sit, plying their needles with a diligence which did not prevent their sometimes casting a furtive glance into the street, and acknowledging the salutation of some passing acquaintance or military admirer of ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... a furtive look at the owner of the joyous voice. The voluminous ribbon bows behind her ears were mostly in evidence, as she bent her face over her ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... they are far too ethereal for mortals. Neither angel nor human, they are rather sprites of elf-land. With their tossing hair and agile motions they remind us of woodland creatures, and they look shyly out of their eyes like the furtive folk ...
— Correggio - A Collection Of Fifteen Pictures And A Portrait Of The - Painter With Introduction And Interpretation • Estelle M. Hurll
... for the first time, the crime real to me. I saw, at a flash, the whole tragedy of desertion,—the cautious approach, the frightened countenance, the furtive act, and the great avenging pang of Nature after its consummation. What was Hester Prynne's pillory, compared to the heart of any of those mothers? I thought, too, of Rousseau, bringing to such a place as this children who had the right to inherit divine ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... delicate features, which showed good blood long inbred to the loss of vigor. He had the fine, open, generous face of one who takes the world as in a fairy story. But now there was care and anxiety in it, and a furtive shadow, as though the lad's dream of life had ...
— The Sleuth of St. James's Square • Melville Davisson Post
... his head slowly, and looked round in a furtive way, which was getting almost a habit with him. 'A fellow should go away so that he wouldn't have to swear lies. Women were always wanting money; or worse: to be married! Confound women; they all seemed to want him to marry them! ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... walked his room, swinging his hands backward and forward, casting furtive glances into his mirror, and then rang his bell. He had arrived at a conclusion. He had fixed upon his scheme, and was ready ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... Josephine to tell him all the details of this strange affair. The motherly care and protection of Josephine has rendered the shy child happy. She knows no home but her little nest with the Dauvrays. Her education is suited to her modest station in life. The substantial payments and furtive visits of the woman who is responsible for her, tell the priest there is here a ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... in the trunk, finally unearthing the weapon. He slipped it into his overcoat pocket with a furtive glance over his shoulder. He chuckled as he went down the stairs. It was a funny thing for him to do, locking the revolver in the trunk that way. What burglar so obliging as to tarry while he went through all the preliminaries ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... free and stirring, something furtive, crafty, cunning—the shadow of the dark primeval forest, at sight of him, fell across the glaring common-placeness of that ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... lumbering heavily in the distance but contriving to catch it up at the end by missing a few bars; sometimes Mr Buckle arriving with his drum and triangle there was a grand performance of all three, when Lilac and Molly, taking furtive peeps at them through the half-open door, were struck with the sincerest admiration and awe. It was indeed wonderful as well as deafening to hear the noise that could be got out of those three instruments; they seemed ...
— White Lilac; or the Queen of the May • Amy Walton
... peacocks scream and the grey Doves coo, Little green, talkative Parrots woo, And small grey Squirrels, with fear askance, At alien me, in their furtive glance, Come shyly, with quivering fur, to see The stranger under their Tamarind tree. Daylight dies, The Camp fires redden like angry eyes, The Tents show white, In the glimmering light, Spirals of tremulous ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... words, full of emotion, which, in their eternal triteness, are like music in the ears of those who love. Every one had withdrawn to the garden, to leave them alone in this last, furtive, happy minute, which is never found again, and which, on the threshold of the unknown, possesses a joy, sad as a last farewell, yet full of hope as the rising of ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... Pete. Frank walked ahead. He towered above the others. He kept his eyes to the front. Ralph followed. At intervals, he pulled himself up and peered into the sky or dropped and tried to pierce the untranslatable distance; all this with the quiet, furtive, prowling movements of some predatory beast. Next came Honey, whistling under his breath and all the time whistling the same tune. Billy and Pete, walking side by side, tailed the procession. At times, those two caught themselves at the beginning of shuddering ...
— Angel Island • Inez Haynes Gillmore
... furtive squirrel-like way seized the piece and was retiring with it, when Sandy, beside himself, jumped from his stool, rushed at his cousin and beat her wildly with his ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ere she spoke, and once or twice I shot her a furtive comprehensive glance, and saw her as I shall ever see ...
— The Strolling Saint • Raphael Sabatini
... of young folk. For Skipper Tommy, to my increasing alarm and to the panic of the twins, who wished for no second mother, still frequented the kitchen, when the day's work was done, and was all the while in a mood so downcast, of a manner so furtive, that it made me sad to talk with him. But by day our kitchen was intolerable with smells—intolerable to him and to us all (save to my sister, who is, and ever has been, brave)—while the doctor-woman hung over the stove, working with things the sight of which my stomach would not brook, ...
— Doctor Luke of the Labrador • Norman Duncan
... children out, etc., before she can have her brief sweet interview through the area-railings with Boopis, the policeman. All day long have his heels to beat the stale pavement before he has the opportunity to snatch the hasty kiss or the furtive cold pie. It is only at moments, and away from these labours, that we can light upon one character or the other; and hence, though most of the persons of whom we are writing have doubtless their grave employments and avocations, it is only ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... off for my afternoon walk, and she has promised to bar the door behind me and open it to none. When I return, - well, the door is still barred, but she is looking both furtive and elated. I should say that she is burning to tell me something, but cannot tell it without exposing herself. Has she opened the door, and if so, why? I don't ask, but I watch. It is she who is ...
— Margaret Ogilvy • James M. Barrie
... out a fragment. The bird dashed at it with a scream, and on the instant the whole squawking flock were on wing. He suffered the hubbub to proceed unappeased for a little while he kept a watchful though furtive eye on that balcony to the left, below. Unhappily he could not get out far enough to see whether the inner curtains of its window were drawn. He threw another bit of bread, and then looked at his watch. It was a few minutes past nine. ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... him. From inside came the creak and whine of a windlass bearing a heavy load. They waited at the final pause, then heard the lower-away and the impact of a bucket on rock. Four times, in the next hour, they heard the thing repeated. Then Wild Water knocked on the door. From inside came low furtive noises, then silences, and more furtive noises, and at the end of five minutes Smoke, breathing heavily, opened the door an inch and peered out. They saw on his face and shirt powdered rock-fragments. His greeting ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... smile of welcome. Then because Jimsy's experience with clean aprons and trimly parted hair was negligible almost to the point of non-existence, it became instantly imperative that he should polish the toe of one worn shoe with the sole of the other and study the result and Aunt Judith with furtive interest. ...
— Jimsy - The Christmas Kid • Leona Dalrymple
... life in the woods at either side allured him with its furtive pulsing. But he kept to the road and passed on. He was not yet far enough from ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... complaint against him. If he had his time again, he would think less of them and more of his people, he would try to win love instead of fear, he would live for peace and not for war. If he had his time again! But there were shuffling Steps, furtive whispers, and the low rattle of arms outside his tent. A bearded face looked in at him, a swarthy African face that he knew well. He laughed, and, bearing his arm, he took his sword from the ...
— The Last Galley Impressions and Tales - Impressions and Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... wherewith to finish his own education and Ted's. Now, seeing the whole scheme nipped in the fair bud by Ted's recklessness, small wonder if his heart grew hard. Presently, however, catching sight of Ted's face of misery, stained with one or two furtive tears, his wrath began ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... He is far from being an artist, whose last and deepest yearning is for the superrefined, the eccentric and satanical, who knows no longing for the innocent, the simple and living, for a little friendship, devotion, confidential familiarity, and human happiness—the furtive and consuming longing for the ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... gray suede gloves, with many buttons, or a lace handkerchief like a morsel of seafoam. These oddities in Mary's toilet, due to her inexperience and untutored shopping, puzzled her companions; and often, while she supposed them occupied with the fashions, they were stealing furtive glances at her clear, saintly profile, the full rose-red lips which contradicted its austerity, and the sparkling waves of hair meekly drawn down over the small ears. Her rapt expression, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... glances, according to the mood of the moment, but never cheerful, never grave; they know each other, or they dread each other. The anticipation of their sentence, remorse, and apprehension give all these men exercising, the anxious, furtive look of the insane. Only the most consummate criminals have the audacity that apes the quietude of respectability, the sincerity ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... each other to hide their emotion, took each other's hand without further speech, and went on together awhile, till she glanced at him with furtive solicitude. "I arrived at Alfredston station last night, as you asked me to, and there was nobody to meet me! But I reached Marygreen alone, and they told me Aunt was a trifle better. I sat up with her, and as you did not come ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... meanest streets of Petrograd. This was the Petrograd of Dostoeffsky, the Petrograd of "Poor Folk" and "Crime and Punishment" and "The Despised and Rejected."... Monstrous groups of flats towered above us, and in the gathering dusk the figures that slipped in and out of the doors were furtive shadows and ghosts. No one seemed to speak; you could see no faces under the spare pale-flamed lamps, only hear whispers and smell rotten stinks and feel the snow, foul and soiled under ...
— The Secret City • Hugh Walpole
... know," said the man, with a furtive glance at David's kindly face, "the risk you run from the men who live in such places if you go ...
— The Garret and the Garden • R.M. Ballantyne
... rightly, by means of an entrance on the Twenty-third Street side, was dreary enough; but turn to the pages of the romance of the sixties and seventies and eighties, and on the heavily upholstered sofas enamoured couples sat in furtive meeting, and words of endearment were whispered, and all the stock intrigue of fiction was set in motion. Then, on the ground floor, was the Amen Corner, without which no tale of political life was complete, and the various rooms ...
— Fifth Avenue • Arthur Bartlett Maurice
... however, with a young corporal of the 6th Regiment, who sat a few yards away on John Rosewarne's right, and smoked his pipe, and cast frequent furtive glances, now along the river path, now back and across the meadow where another path led from the town. Each of these glances ended in a resentful stare at his too-near neighbour, who fished ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... well-known Red Rover," returned the other, dropping his voice, and casting a furtive look around him, as if even he thought extraordinary caution was necessary in ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... her salad and broke fragments of delicious crusty roll, Claire threw furtive glances across the table at the man who for the last weeks had exercised so disturbing an element in her life. Was it six weeks or two months, since she and her mother had first made his acquaintance at the ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... once raising his head. He overacted his zeal. He would allow no one to disturb him, by so much as a word. And when Clotilde would leave the room on tiptoe to give an order downstairs or to go on some errand, he would assure himself by a furtive glance that she was gone, and then let his head drop on the table, with an air of profound dejection. It was a painful relief from the extraordinary effort which he compelled himself to make when she was present; to remain at his table, instead of going over and ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... unconcern, meant to hide an adverse feeling, which Rangihaeta, however, frankly expressed. He could look back upon his years, old Rauparaha, and mark in them enough stir and fight to satisfy a score of warriors. Age had crawled on to his shoulders, causing his furtive eyes to rest on the ground. But he was still himself, as Sir George Grey realised, on receiving certain information. It indicated that Rauparaha was in a league of mischief, that he had quietly given a signal, and that large bodies of natives ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... After a little furtive looking backward perhaps, and a few tremblings and doubts, they shall all be seen, almost to a man, offering their souls to Moloch, as though the not having a soul and not missing it were the one final and consummate triumph that ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... never asked, and for three whole days His Majesty the King gloated over his treasure. It was of no earthly use to him, but it was splendid, and, for aught he knew, something dropped from the heavens themselves. Still Mamma made no inquiries, and it seemed to him, in his furtive peeps, as though the shiny stones grew dim. What was the use of a 'parkle cwown if it made a little boy feel all bad in his inside? He had the pink string as well as the other treasure, but greatly ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling
... to be said or done, so after a few minutes of contemplation we turned to continue our walk through what had been the royal quarters to the north gate. Hans, who, I noted, had been ferreting about in his furtive way as though he were looking for something, and I were the last to leave. Suddenly he laid his hand upon ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... to lodge A furtive beast or fowl, The martin, bat, Or forest cat That nightly loves to prowl, Nor ivy nooks so apt to shroud The ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood
... can with her weak fingers, into the pannikin, and then pours upon them a few drops of the precious fluid. She looks at the water with longing eyes, but will not expend even one drop to cool her parched lips. She mixes the biscuit till it is completely softened, and then casting another furtive glance towards the bow, unconscious that the dead only are there, she carefully lifts up the awning. A low weak voice utters the word "Aya;" it is that of a child, some three or four years old perhaps; at the same time there is a plaintive cry from ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... Now, furtive 'mid the city's noise, I pause, I start, I flee! For what would happen to my little boys If a tram ...
— The Bay and Padie Book - Kiddie Songs • Furnley Maurice
... asked, carelessly, as I caught a furtive glance of his eyes. "Anything financial? Pray draw upon me! I will ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... somewhat strained their powers, but for good purposes, and in essentially a moderate and candid spirit; but when Congress attempts to dominate the executive, its objects are generally bad and its methods furtive and dangerous. Our legislatures were and still are the strongholds of special and local interests, and anything which undermines executive authority in this country seriously threatens our national integrity and ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... comfortable. There's nobody else on this floor but Letty and the baby, but you don't look as if you would be easily frightened." Astonished, not so much by her words as by the furtive look she gave me, I laughed as I repeated "Frightened? What ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... contentment alongside his big companion. And as he walked, he stole upward and sidelong glances of furtive hero worship at the tall, plainly clad figure. Jim Hartmann was of a build and aspect to rouse such worship in the frail little fellow. He had the shoulders, the chest girth, the stride of an athlete, tempered by the slight ...
— The Return of Peter Grimm - Novelised From the Play • David Belasco
... quoth she. "Yet since you can be silent and furtive in other matters, I beg that you will be silent in this also. You talk in vain, Monsieur, in any case. For I am not minded to leave Choisy. If you urge me further I shall burn ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... furtive irony of the sweetest kind is the sure sign of the visit of that unlooked-for muse. With all spirit and subtlety does Marvell pretend to offer the little girl T. C. (the future "virtuous enemy ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... was self-conscious. Rachel observed it, while feigning the contrary, and in her turn grew uneasy and even self-conscious also. Further, she had the feeling that Louis was depending upon her for support, and perhaps for initiative. His glance, though furtive, had the appealing quality which rendered him sometimes so exquisitely wistful to her. As he stood over her by the bed, he made a peculiar compound of the negligent, dominant ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... plans are undecided—at any rate six days—"Will 'Mr.' make a reduction?" "Mr." however, continues his manuscript, oh ever so long! and smiles; his smile is worse than his bite! I, the Habitue, approach "Mr." with a furtive clandestine air, and observe cheerily, "I hope to remain here a month." "Certainly, Sor; is better you do; will be se same as last year; I gif you se same appartement, you see."—This with an air of favour. I thank him profusely—for nothing. ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 27, 1892 • Various
... sometimes the weekly newspaper, Grey, on coarse, crumpled paper, and borrowed from house to house, Small-sized, yet precious, and read through from beginning to end, Bright, young heads circling close, peering together over its columns. Now and then, furtive glances reconnoitre the ingle-side, Where before a bed of coals, rows of red apples are roasting, Spitting out their life-juices spitefully, in unwilling martyrdom. Finished, and drawn back, the happy group wait ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... by the little Benares table and, resting her face on her hands, began to cry quietly. Rosanne stared before her with an absorbed stare. She seemed in a very transport of grave thought. When Mrs. Ozanne at length raised her eyes for an almost furtive glance, she thought she had never seen anything so tragic as her daughter's face. Her own was working horribly with misery and ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... gods turned to do the work of the gods, answering the prayers of men or smiting them, and ever They sent Their swarthy servant Time to heal or overwhelm. And Time went forth into the worlds to obey the commands of the gods, yet he cast furtive glances at his masters, and the gods distrusted Time because he had known the worlds or ever ...
— Time and the Gods • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... with sums, whose addition seemed to have mightily perplexed the taproom arithmeticians, and defiled with inscriptions of a foul, loose-witted, waterside lubricity that made me blush and feel qualmish. But I found a furtive enjoyment in the odd place, and the snoring sailor, and the low plashing of the estuary against the decaying timbers, and the silence ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... been driven for the night; he lamented and he cursed, muffling his tones. And a man named Bartley Wagg, having taken it upon himself to keep close tabs on Vaniman's state of mind, noted the prisoner's rebellious restlessness with deepening interest and coupled a lot of steady pondering with his furtive espionage. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day
... under my care to be helped out of a mood of increasing depression and uneasiness. Her glance was furtive, yet anxiously expectant. Tears came unbidden as she sat alone or fingered the keys of the piano. Tactful questioning elicited no response as to reasons for her unhappiness. Opportunities for giving confidence were not accepted. At ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... vistas of silence far in the jungle lost their individuality in a sob. Grasshoppers clinked in the forest, the hum of bees and beetles, the fluty plaint of a painted pigeon far in the gloom, the furtive scamper of scrub fowl among leaves made tender by decay, the splash of startled fish in the shadows, commingled and blended to the accompaniment of that subdued aerial buzz by which Nature manifests the more secret of her functions ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... like a pen, and the full flower itself nestled drooping at her cheek. There was never anything in the world more demure than her face and her manner, but the frolic eye betrayed her mood now and then, and Paul was half beside himself at every furtive smile she shot at him. A local tenor, the pride of the church choir, was there, and May and he sang duets together, amongst them 'Come where my love lies dreaming.' Paul's heart obeyed the call with a virgin coyness, and his thoughts stole into some ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... had dropped its eyes after the first long look, as if in a kind of relaxation, and remained motionless, staring at the fire in a sort of dejection. Yet beneath, she perceived plainly, there was the same alert hostility; and when she spoke the eyes rose again with a quick furtive attentiveness. The semi-intelligent beast was soothed, ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... open drawer, and his eyes narrowed with a look of furtive eagerness that did not escape Blake. In a corner of the drawer was a squat black bottle and a tumbler. Ashton lifted them out and poured a half-glassful of whiskey that was thick and ...
— Out of the Primitive • Robert Ames Bennet
... this mist lifted, tall tops of trees appearing above it, till at length it thinned into vapour that vanished away as the sun rose. As I watched it idly, the woman, Jeel, crept up to me in her furtive fashion, touched me on the shoulder and pointed to a distant ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... been making a few lines in a small pocket sketch-book, with a furtive glance or two at Florida. When they returned to the boat, he busied himself again with the book, and presently he handed ...
— A Foregone Conclusion • W. D. Howells
... "Peace" still; but begins with "Maupertuis," which is all we will give). "What rage animates you against Maupertuis? You accuse HIM of having published that Furtive EDITION. Know that his Copy, well sealed by him, arrived here after his death, and that he was incapable of such an indiscretion. [Breaks ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Guy was on his feet again, prowling uneasily up and down, but he had not crossed the threshold. He gave him that furtive, hunted look ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... turn." And he fell to eating again. But do what he would, he could not keep his eyes off the face of the girl. If she moved, his gaze followed her about the room, as straight as a steel follows on after a magnet; and when she stood still, he cast furtive glances that way each minute. In very truth, he might well be forgiven for so doing. Not often does it fall to the lot of men to see a more bewitching face than the face of Victorine Dubois. Many a woman might be found fairer and of a nobler cast of feature; but in the countenance ...
— Between Whiles • Helen Hunt Jackson
... her large mournful eyes cast down, tho' occasionally she threw furtive glances at her grandmother's darkened countenance, and seemed to be doing anything but enjoying herself. And no wonder poor child, for she was sure of a terrible scolding sooner or later. Arthur paid attention to the ladies generally, with whom he ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... victim was already appointed. Trembling at first as to the consequences of his forced confession, Derues waited some days, paying, however, his creditor as promised. He redoubles his demonstrations of piety, he casts a furtive glance on everyone he meets, seeking for some expression of distrust. But no one avoids him, or points him out with a raised finger, or whispers on seeing him; everywhere he encounters the customary expression of goodwill. Nothing has changed; ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
