"Tete-a-tete" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bigger sister across the border in more ways than one, he could not be expected to know that de Cartier loved not his wife and did love the pretty Louise. Nor could his pride have been convinced that the young woman at his side was enjoying the tete-a-tete chiefly because de Cartier was fiercely cursing the misfortune which had thrown this new element into conflict. It may be unnecessary to say that Mrs. Garrison was delighted with the unmistakable signs of admiration manifested by ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... about us with such confiding curiosity, that by reaching out my hand I could touch their wings as they poised themselves in the air alongside. There was one old sober-sides with whom I passed a good ten minutes tete-a-tete, trying who could stare the other ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... explanation," I thought, as I saw his face. If that were so, then Kitty had blundered in her strategy and hurt Charley's cause; for after the two came Gazza, as obviously "sent" as any emissary ever looked: Kitty took care of the singing, while Gazza intercepted any tete-a-tete. I rose and made a fourth with them, and even as I was drawing near, the devilment in Hortense's face sank inward ...
— Lady Baltimore • Owen Wister
... Denham. "We are leaving Soeur Angelique and Miss Vernor to have a regular tete-a-tete of it, are we not? But you evade my question in a very unbecoming way, Miss Phebe. Tell me, what were ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... of their cabin, and the men had not yet finished their evening's tobacco. The awning had been removed, the stars were shining in the moonless sky, the poop guard had shifted itself to the quarter-deck, and Miss Sarah Purfoy was walking up and down the deserted poop, in close tete-a-tete with no less a person than Captain Blunt himself. She had passed and repassed him twice silently, and at the third turn the big fellow, peering into the twilight ahead somewhat uneasily, obeyed the glitter of her great eyes, ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... time Alicia sailed in. I suppose she had found out from Bessie who my caller was, and felt rather worried over the length of our tete-a-tete. ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... and the tete-a-tete was put an end to by a burst of singing from one of the sergeants, who was followed at the end of his song by others, each giving a ditty in his turn; the singer standing up in front of the table, stretching his chin well into the air, ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... enjoy it!" Winterbourne declared. And he desired more and more to make it a certainty that he was to have the privilege of a tete-a-tete with the young lady, who was still strolling along in front of them, softly vocalizing. "You are not disposed, madam," he ...
— Daisy Miller • Henry James
... toil, the ennui and labor of translating Italian words, groping in the darkness of her imperfect knowledge. The whole burden of the book fell upon her; when he had laid out her task, he would leave her tete-a-tete with the volumes bound in white vellum, to go and ramble about the neighborhood, paying visits, gambling at some chateau or dining among the bourgeois of his acquaintance, to whom he would complain pathetically of the laborious effort that the vast undertaking of his translation ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... were engaged in making their bow to the others, Constance casually reapproached the donkeys. Tony feigned immersion in the business of strapping hampers; he had no wish to be drawn into any Italian tete-a-tete. But to his relief she addressed ...
— Jerry Junior • Jean Webster
... as if he had been one of them from childhood, he found little opportunity to be alone with Conscience. Indeed the idea came to him at first vaguely, then persistently, that she herself was seeking to avoid anything savoring of the quality of a tete-a-tete. ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... to one another, and a horror and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and the woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another table, tete-a-tete with an old man, rose and came over to listen ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... the well-known voice of the commandant. "I had no idea I was interrupting a tete-a-tete. In fact, I did not associate you with ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... to pass, in the course of the evening, that Mr. Ulstervelt, supremely confident from the effect of past achievements, drew the unsuspecting Mrs. Medcroft into a secluded tete-a-tete. It is not of record that he was ever a diplomatic wooer; one in haste never is. Suffice it to say, Mrs. Medcroft, her cheeks flaming, her eyes wide with indignation, suddenly left the side of the indomitable Freddie and ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... and Enid, a troubled something in his expression. I could see that the promoter was making the most of his tete-a-tete with the girl, but she seemed perfectly at ease and quite capable of handling the man, and I, certainly, was more disturbed at ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... the country he is cut off from all his usual habits, and soon feels the dragging hours, no matter how attentive his friends may be to him. Therefore, because it is so impossible to prolong in a tete-a-tete conversations that are soon exhausted, the master and mistress of a country-house are apt to say, calmly, "You will be terribly bored here." It is true that to understand the delights of country life one must have something to do, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... a hand; we lost a sailor. Bear a hand; make haste. Hand to fist; opposite: the same as tete-a-tete, or cheek ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... an alarmed look; and finding a gap in the tete-a-tete between her sister and Sir Ronald, struck smilingly in. He was small and he was homely, but he was a baronet and worth eight thousand a year, and Rose brought all the battery of her charms to bear. In vain. She might as well have tried to fascinate one of the gnarled old tamaracks out-of-doors. ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... for that. The young man, at first almost as much startled as his companion at the uncanny apparition, naturally experienced a revulsion of indignation at such an extraordinary interruption to his tete-a-tete, and stepped up to Mr. Morgan as if about to inflict summary chastisement. But perceiving that he had to do with an elderly man, he contented himself with demanding in a decidedly aggressive tone what the devil he meant ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... the radishes just to show that I was not abashed by her haughty, reproachful air. Other passengers were strolling in. Here was Mr. John Van Blarcom, who, at the sight of Miss Falconer and myself to all appearances cozily established for a tete-a-tete meal, stopped in his tracks and fastened on me the hard, appraising scrutiny that a policeman might turn on a hitherto respectable acquaintance discovered in converse with some notorious crook. For an instant he seemed disposed to buttonhole me and ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... immediately, making some remark about the ship in English. The stranger answered in the same language, but with a strong foreign accent. He seemed quite willing to talk. He apologized for interrupting their tete-a-tete, but said he had no choice, as the saloon was completely full. They declared they were quite ready for company, Nigel with his usual sympathetic geniality, Mrs. Armine with a sort of graceful formality beneath which—or so her husband fancied—there was just a suspicion of reluctance. He guessed ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... or did nothing in that tete-a-tete luncheon his wife might not have heard or seen, but the fact that he talked entirely about you and art, and other universal subjects, and seemingly avoided any reference to his wife and ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... a migraine that afternoon, the two friends had the pleasure of a tete-a-tete dinner at half-past six. They sat by one of the great windows of what used to be the chapel of the monastery, but is now the dining-room of the Inselhaus, and enjoyed the sweet lake breeze, while their tongues ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... piratical-looking pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the TETE-A-TETE and departed. ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... Lightfoot, my good fellow," Mr. Morgan said, with parental kindness, and then asked of his own bosom with a sigh, why the deuce does my Governor want Master Arthur to marry such a girl as this? and the tete-a-tete of the two gentlemen was broken up by the entry of other gentlemen, members of the Club—when fashionable town-talk, politics, cribbage, and other amusements ensued, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... their new domiciliary, Janice showed the utmost nervousness, seldom leaving her mother's or father's side, and never venturing into the hallways without a previous peep to see that they were empty. As the weeks wore on without any attempt on the commissary's part to surprise her into a tete-a-tete, to recur to the words he had forced her to utter, or to be anything but a polite, entertaining, and thoughtful host, the girl gained courage, and little by little took life more equably. She would have been been less easy, though better able ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... afternoon and Mary sat on the veranda steps with him, while Helen made hay with Wally on a tete-a-tete above. ...
— Mary Minds Her Business • George Weston
... he required in regard to Ferdinand Ardayre before they went into the hall for coffee—there was nothing further to be gained by having another tete-a-tete with Harietta, so he sat down by Stanislass and suggested that the other two should go on to the Coliseum without them, and Harietta was obliged to depart reluctantly with Ferdinand, having arranged that Stepan should let her know, directly he arrived in Paris, whither ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn
... another, mutely and persistently. What would they be to one another? What would this life be that they were about to begin together? What joys, what happiness, or what disillusions were they preparing in this long, indissoluble tete-a-tete of marriage? And it seemed to them as if they had ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... Justice demands the admission that her reappearance in a glamour of lilac was reward for the delay; nothing more ravishing was ever seen, she was warrantably informed by the quicker of the two guests, in a moment's whispered tete-a-tete across the banisters as she descended. Another wait followed while she prettily arranged upon the table some dozens of asters from a small garden-bed, tilled, planted, and tended by Laura. Meanwhile, Mrs. Madison constantly turned the other cheek to the cook. Laura assisted in the pacification; ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington
... course of an hour's tete-a-tete, on a corner sofa, under the eyes of the world, the Duchess brought young d'Esgrignon as far as Scipio's Generosity, the Devotion of Amadis, and Chivalrous Self-abnegation (for the Middle Ages were just coming into fashion, with their daggers, machicolations, ...
— The Collection of Antiquities • Honore de Balzac
... Julia," said the Colonel, "you are perfectly right; my friend the counsellor is a dangerous person; the last time I had the pleasure of seeing him, he was closeted with a fair lady, who, had granted him a tete-a-tete at eight ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... skipper spent hard at work with the cargo, bustling about with feverish energy as the afternoon wore on and left him to imagine his rival tete-a-tete with Annis. After tea a reaction set in, and, bit by bit the mate, by means of timely sympathy, learnt all that there was to know. Henry, without a display of anything, except, perhaps, ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... something about champagne that inspires confidence. When a man gives you the gold bottle you know that he is really serious, or as serious as he can be, which isn't saying much for most men. And not half a bottle; I've had half-bottles heaps of times at tete-a-tete dinners. It always means indecision, which is a beastly thing in anyone, and especially in a man. It's insulting, for one thing.... Oh, Peter, do look at that girl over there. Do you suppose she has anything on underneath? I suppose I couldn't ask her, but ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... temperament than her friend, practised with less success the art of disguising impatience. What these ladies were waiting for would not have been apparent and was perhaps not very definite to their own minds. Madame Merle waited for Osmond to release their young friend from her tete-a-tete, and the Countess waited because Madame Merle did. The Countess, moreover, by waiting, found the time ripe for one of her pretty perversities. She might have desired for some minutes to place it. Her brother ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... inexplicable manner her attitude of mind conveyed itself to Nan, and the latter was rebelliously conscious of the older woman's efforts to dominate her. It came as an inexpressible relief when at last their tete-a-tete was interrupted. ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... was necessary for you to show your dislike to Dona Rosita quite so plainly," she said, coldly, slightly accenting the Puritan stiffness, which any conjugal tete-a-tete lately revived ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... conduplicate[obs3]; mate, span [U.S.]. Adj. two, twin; dual, dualistic, double; binary, binomial; twin, biparous[obs3]; dyadic[Math]; conduplicate[obs3]; duplex &c. 90; biduous[obs3], binate[obs3], diphyletic[obs3], dispermic[obs3], unijugate[obs3]; tete-a-tete. coupled &c. v.; conjugate. both, both ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... Ormiston, with his usual good sense and penetration, took himself off, and left Leoline and Sir Norman tete-a-tete, his steps turned as mechanically as the needle to the North Pole toward La Masque's house. Before it he wandered, around it he wandered, like an uneasy ghost, lost in speculation about the hidden face, and fearfully impatient about the flight of time. ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... sullen rudeness the hand he offered to assist her in alighting from her horse or in climbing over a fence. She seemed to avoid every occasion of finding herself alone with him, and when she could not escape a tete-a-tete of a few moments, she manifested either restless irritation or mocking impertinence. Lucan fancied she reproached herself sometimes with belying too much her former sentiments, and that she thought she owed it to herself to give them from time to time a token of fidelity. He was ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... mate, span [U.S.]. Adj. two, twin; dual, dualistic, double; binary, binomial; twin, biparous^; dyadic [Math.]; conduplicate^; duplex &c 90; biduous^, binate^, diphyletic^, dispermic^, unijugate^; tete-a-tete. coupled &c v.; conjugate. both, both the one and ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... feelings; his lips parted in such loving admiration of his mother and closed so lovingly upon her own. After a profound bow to myself and a hearty grasp of the hand, he drew her to the crimson cushions of a tete-a-tete standing near, and passing his arm around her held her closely to him, as if afraid he would lose her. I envied her, and any heart might well envy the passionate devotion of a son like Louis ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... looked quite stately and she carried her blond head high. She sparkled away through dinner and proved her happy faculty of fitting in, perfectly. It was a very merry meal, and later, by the library fire, Conning found himself tete-a-tete with his future sister-in-law. ...
— The Man Thou Gavest • Harriet T. Comstock
... The President walked over, accompanied by his military aid, Col. Harte, and the secret-service men. Before he left the White House he had stood for several minutes leaning over the side of the automobile having a tete-a-tete ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... impatient suspicion of the resemblance, he declared himself pitifully bete; but he was under a charm that braved even the supreme penalty of seeming ridiculous. One morning he had half an hour's tete-a-tete with his grandmother's confessor, a soft-voiced old Abbe whom, for reasons of her own, Madame de Mauves had suddenly summoned and had left waiting in the drawing-room while she rearranged her curls. His reverence, going up to the old lady, assured her that M. le Comte ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James
... at the bottom of his heart, entertained a considerable degree of regard and affection for M. de Beaufort, made himself a great treat of this tete-a-tete supper. His chief foible was gluttony, and for this grand occasion the confectioner had promised to outdo himself. The pasty was to be of pheasants, the wine of the best vintage of Chambertin. By adding to the agreeable images which this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... her place on the divan, but Vaudrey had already forgiven her tete-a-tete with Rosas—and in truth, what had he to forgive?—This burning glance had effaced everything. He bore it away like a bright ray and still shuddered at the sensation ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... as any doctor might have done. From time to time he felt the slackening pulse, and looked at the glassy and sightless eyes which turned in their orbits, and he saw without terror the approach of night, which rendered this awful 'tete-a-tete' even more horrible. The most profound silence reigned in the house, the street was deserted, and the only sound heard was caused by an icy rain mixed with snow driven against the glass, and occasionally the howl of the wind, which penetrated the chimney and scattered ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - DERUES • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... request, and putting her hand into the one extended to help her, jumped lightly down. It was a welcome means of according an innocent tete-a-tete to her devoted lover, and both felt as if they were treading on air, they were so happy to find themselves alone together, as, arm in arm, they walked briskly forward, until they were out of sight of their companions. Then they paused to look long and lovingly ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... attractive, he is positively FASCINATING," she said to herself in the solitude of her room after the tete-a-tete over the Welsh rarebit that evening. "I don't know when I have felt such a pleasure in a man's presence. Not since—" But the Baroness did not allow herself to go back so far. "If there is any fruit ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... amuse Fleda with it while her mother performed her promise of getting an early supper; a command grateful to one or two of the party, for Catharine had been carrying on all this while a most stately tete-a-tete with Hugh which neither had any wish to prolong. So Fleda filled up the time good-naturedly with thrumming over the two or three bits of her childish music that she could recall, till Mr. Douglass came in and they were summoned to sit down to ...
— Queechy • Susan Warner
... inveigled Guy Martin into a tete-a-tete corner with her, but after a polite quarter of an hour, he declared he must move around and confer with a few people concerning ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... Triumphs of Cally's Life, and the Tete-a-tete following, which vaguely depresses her; of the Little Work-Girl who brought the Note that Sunday, ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... being Monday, I carried on my work according to the new model. Dined at home and in quiet. But I may notice that yesterday Mr. Williams, the learned Rector of our new Academy, who now leaves us, took his dinner here. We had a long philological tete-a-tete. He is opinionative, as he has some title to be, but very learned, and with a juster view of his subject than is commonly entertained, for he traces words to the same source—not from sound but sense. He casts backwards ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... strove with profound levity to indicate his arch comprehension of the situation, and in vain, later, becoming alarmed, he endeavored, with cheerful gravity, to indicate his utter obliviousness of any but a business significance in their tete-a-tete. ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte
... begged her once more to be seated and to atone for all that was unkind in the past by letting me talk to her. There could have been no better place, outside of her cozy cabin, for this long-dreamed-of tete-a-tete, which now at last was to have a realization, than this she had herself chosen. The pile of pelts at her back kept off the east wind, the young moon in the west shone full upon her face, so that I could feast my eyes upon its glorious beauty (for the last time, I said ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... a man whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however, and greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag in his hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him. He continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and gave other signs ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... she murmured, dropping her voice a little, and intimating by the slight movement of her head towards him, that their conversation was to become a tete-a-tete. "Well," she continued, "I suppose that life is that with all of us, only you see with us poor frivolous people, a search means nearly always the same thing—a search for amusement or distraction, whichever you choose to ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... at her elbow with pad and pencil poised for her order, unconscious also of her husband, now her happy tete-a-tete, she spoke ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... the royal mandate; and soon seated at the beauty's feet, in the glow of the warm wood fire and in the glory of her heavenly presence, he would lose himself in a delicious dream of love and music. No one ever interrupted their tete-a-tete. And Ishmael grew to feel that he belonged to his liege lady; that they were forever inseparate and inseparable. And thus his days passed in one delusive dream of bliss until the time came ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... touch of eagerness and followed her, wondering if her intriguing sentence before breakfast had been nothing more than a clever piece of chicane, planned to entice me into a tete-a-tete. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... confidence to give you, and may take that opportunity of making it— a confidence, not which may or may not be made, like yours, but which I ought to make to you, the necessity of making which furnishes, to say the truth, a very plausible reason for our projected tete-a-tete." ...
— A Siren • Thomas Adolphus Trollope
... "But I fear we keep our young friend from his bed. Doubtless, you have no secrets from him, but you will agree, Herr Doktor, that our conversation should best be tete-a-tete." ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... there is a great deal more than that. We must all know that when we are with friends to whose moods and emotions we are attuned, there takes place a singular degree of thought-transference, quite apart from speech. I had once a great friend with whom I was accustomed to spend much time tete-a-tete. We used to travel together and spend long periods, day after day, in close conjunction, often indeed sharing the same bedroom. It became a matter at first of amusement and interest, but afterwards an accepted fact, that we could often realise, even after a long silence, ...
— Where No Fear Was - A Book About Fear • Arthur Christopher Benson
... were seen slowly coming down the steps, and in another minute had joined them on the platform. Charles Osmond and Raeburn fell into an amicable discussion, and Brian, to his great satisfaction, was left to an uninterrupted tete-a-tete with Erica. There had been no further demonstration by the crowd, and Erica, now that the anxiety was over, was ready to make fun of Mr. Randolph and his band, checking herself every now and then for fear of hurting her companion, but breaking forth again and ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... left us soon, and the major and myself were once more tete-a-tete beside a cheerful fire; a well-chosen array of bottles guaranteeing that for some time at least no necessity of leave-taking should arise from ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... slight acquaintance with the young beauty and her chaperon, found himself victimized by half a regiment at a time. Patsy soon had partners in plenty, and the Prince Eitel, who had looked forward to a pleasant tete-a-tete, retired to a corner from which he gloomed more and more murkily. He folded his arms and regarded the dancers with ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... person into yielding; but of course all he could then do was to make a sign to M. de Lamont to approach, present him to me, and say, 'I have requested Madame to reconsider her decision,' with which he bowed and left us tete-a-tete in the throng. ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... led the shy Elizabeth had been a clearing-house of confused ideas during their long tete-a-tete. Madame le Claire had explained the mystery of dual personality as well as it can be explained, with some comment on the fact that such things happen to people occasionally, no one knows why. Alvord and ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... possible jealousy that might seek revenge. Yet he had no reason to believe that Susy's nature was jealous, or that she was likely to have any cause; but the fact remained that Miss Faulkner's innocent intrusion upon their tete-a-tete affected him more strongly than anything else in his interview with Susy. Once out of the atmosphere of that house, it struck him, too, that Miss Faulkner was almost as much of an alien in it as himself. He wondered what she had been doing there. Could ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... have been that the guest was handicapped by circumstances—to be good company without discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may have been that the daring spirits felt their courage forsake them in a tete-a-tete; but it is certain that once when Florozonde drove home in the small hours to the tattered aunt who lived on her, she exclaimed violently that, "All this silly fake was giving her the hump, and that she wished she were ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... think the ball has gone off well?" she asked incredulously. "It seems to me to have been an elaborate failure." She was thinking of those two whom she had surprised tete-a-tete in the balcony, and wondering what George Fairfax could have been saying to produce Clarissa's confusion. Clarissa was her protegee, and she was responsible to her sister Geraldine for any mischief brought about ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... little time longer the young ladies and their favored attendants strolled about the room in quiet tete-a-tete, and then the ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... own character, and sure, with her father to second her assurance, that boarding-school was the proper place to form it. Eddy was also at school, and Mrs. Upton, with the alternative of flight or an unbroken tete-a-tete with her husband before her, chose the former. There was no breach, no crash; any such disturbances had taken place long before; she simply slid away, and her prolonged absences seemed symbols of fundamental and long recognized divisions. She came home for the children's holidays; ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... crowded round to hear the extraordinary song, and when the song was at last finished several of them remained, so that Ste. Marie saw he was to be allowed an uninterrupted tete-a-tete with Olga Nilssen no longer. He therefore drifted away, after a few moments, and went with Duval and one of the other men across the room to look at some small jade objects—snuff-bottles, bracelets, buckles, and the like—which ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... London. In Trinity Chapel is the monument of Eau de Cologne, just as it is now exhibiting at the Diarrhoea in the Regent's Park. It was late when we got to Dover. We walked about while our dinner was preparing, looking forward to our snug tete-a-tete of three. We went to look at the sea—so called, perhaps, from the uninterrupted view one has when upon it. It was very curious to see the locks to keep the water here, and the keys which are on each side of them, all ready, I ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... callow kind of equality with everybody, even the stars and aristocrats, at one moment, and a backstairs outsider the next. It was all just as the moment demanded. There was a certain excitement in slithering up and down the social scale, one minute chatting in a personal tete-a-tete with the most famous, or notorious, of the society beauties: and the next walking in the rain, with his flute in a bag, to his grubby lodging in Bloomsbury. Only the excitement roused all the savage sarcasm that lay at the bottom of his soul, and which burned ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... there was a folding green table with cards on it. The captain, the commander of our division, went to our tent to sleep; the other gentlemen also separated, and Guskof and I were left alone. I was not mistaken, it was really very uncomfortable for me to have a tete-a-tete with him; I arose involuntarily, and began to promenade up and down on the battery. Guskof walked in silence by my side, hastily and awkwardly wheeling around so as not to delay or ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: Russian • Various
... situation, station; fundament, buttocks, bottom, breech; chair, sofa, tete-a-tete, divan, settee; banquette, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 'out of practice,' or had some other excuse, generally a witticism or bit of sarcasm at his own expense. I am sorry now that I did not urge him with more persistence, for he might have yielded in the end, and I would have got a more intime idea of his playing; for after all a musical tete-a-tete like that is preferable to any public hearing. I never heard Grieg play at a concert, but I am sure that the hour I sat near him in his Bergen home, while he played and his wife sang, gave me a better appreciation of his skill ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... softened a little toward Edith. Perhaps she was not wholly to blame. She remembered the night Edith had endeavoured to escape a tete-a-tete with Alden and she herself had practically forced her to stay. Regardless of the warning given by the crystal ball, in which Madame now had more faith than ever, she had not only given opportunity, but had even forced ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... everywhere that he was likely to meet her, and her joy at meeting him easily betrayed itself in her eyes and her smile. And he did not refrain from actually making love to Anna on the occasions when they were able to engage in tete-a-tete conversations. Nor was he positively repelled. Soon the acquaintance became more and more intimate. Meantime, Aleksei as usual would come home and, instead of seeking his wife's society, would bury himself in his library amongst ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... was then on his return from Chevydale's, soon joined them, and they proceeded in the direction of his father's, Dora and Hanna having, with good-humored consideration, gone forward as an advanced guard, leaving Bryan and Kathleen to enjoy their tete-a-tete behind them. ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... the Countess Biron, who declared she had never been the heroine of a thrilling adventure, before, insisted that she at least was quite herself again, and would feel cheated if their heroic deliverer did not remain for a lunch, even though it be a tete-a-tete affair; and she, of course, wanted to hear all the details of the horror; that child, Judithe, had not seemed to remember much; she supposed she must have been terribly frightened. "Yet, one never knew how the Marquise would be effected by any thing! She was always surprising people; usually ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... elbow, with whom entering into a conversation, the minutes were not measured till Dashall's return, who perceiving he was engaged, appeared inclined to retire, and leave the cooing couple to their apparently agreeable tete-a-tete. Bob, however, observing him, immediately wished his fair incognita good night, and ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... quitted, but in its shelves, cupboards, and closely fitting boarding bearing out the general nautical suggestion of the house—and seated themselves before a small table on which their frugal meal was spread. In this tete-a-tete position Jim suddenly laid down his knife and fork and stared ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... task, a duty without reward. The sick man tormented the poor creature, who was now doomed to learn what venomous and spiteful teasing a half-imbecile man, whom poverty had rendered craftily savage, could be capable of in the weary tete-a-tete of each endless day. Delighted to turn a sharpened arrow in the sensitive heart of the mother, he had, in a measure, studied the fears that Oscar's behavior and defects inspired in the poor woman. When a mother receives from her child a shock like that of the affair at Presles, she continues in ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... however, Price was able to dine at home. They met at table and he saw at once that she either had recovered her spirits or was making a deliberate attempt to create the impression of a carefree young woman happy in a tete-a-tete dinner with ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... hand, who boasted of having had one tete-a-tete and joined in several general conversations with the peerage, appraised ...
— Count Bunker • J. Storer Clouston
... while away his idle hours than from any other motive; and it was also quite evident that the young lady herself took the same view. She gave a light and humorous aspect to everything she said, and permitted him scarcely an opportunity for a solitary "tete-a-tete." In vain he placed his bays and buggy ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... into the poky living room, which smelt of meals, and had tea, and the sort of barren talk that the presence of the third person necessitated. Mary seemed purposely to avoid a TETE-A-TETE. When Miss Goldsworthy went to fetch the baby, Ruby was kept at her step-mother's side. Only when the black-eyed boy appeared did Mary brighten into a likeness to her old self. She was a born mother, and her child consoled her. Then, in the midst of the baby worship, ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... secretly watching the girl keenly, studying her play of expression, seeking, according to his habit, to make his guarded estimate of a new factor in his household. From Virginia's face his eyes went swiftly now and then to his daughter's, animated in her tete-a-tete with the sheriff. Once, when Virginia turned unexpectedly, she caught the hint of a troubled ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... alone with him in her room in Woodhouse—for she had given up tramping the country, and had hired a music-room in a quiet street, where she gave her lessons. And the young man had hung round, and had never wanted to go away. They would prolong their tete-a-tete and their singing on till ten o'clock at night, and Miss Frost would return to Manchester House flushed and handsome and a little shy, while the young man, who was common, took on a new boldness in the streets. He had auburn hair, ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... displayed on the counter. But as it is far from my quarter to yours and as you might make a useless trip, when you arrive in Paris, give me a rendezvous. And at that we shall make another to dine informally tete-a-tete. ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... streets did not escape the notice of the Cubans. Nor did the flag of Cuba Libre picked out in electric lights over the entrance of a restaurant near the theatre, nor other significant sights and sounds. But they warily held their peace. I looked for some show of feeling, but there was none. A tete-a-tete with Mercedes was out of the question, and for this I fervently thanked the gods! There was no telling the havoc that bewitching face might have wrought. Principles, opinions, and theories might have withered and fallen utterly ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... had to leave her last remark unanswered. But, as on the threshold he again turned to bow his farewell, his eyes met hers, and though their lips were dumb, they had perhaps told one another more in this single second than during the whole time of their long tete-a-tete. ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... into tete-a-tete conversation in the presence of others, or refer to any topic of conversation which is not of common interest and commonly known. Mysterious allusions or assumed understandings with one or two members of a group are ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... unembarrassed and natural, though, of course, there was more reserve than during the years they had lived so much together, almost as brother and sister. We are obliged to leave the ladies for the present, and follow Hazlehurst to his tete-a-tete dinner ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... second, nor third, Captain.—The truth is, I want a tete-a-tete with Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's," replied the Earl; "and, besides, I have to beg the very particular favour of you to go again to that fellow Martigny. It is time that he should produce his papers, if he has any—of which, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... business. You are young, amiable, unconventional; you suit me and will save me from the tediousness of a tete-a-tete." ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... fire; a smile of ineffable voluptuousness played around her lips; and her magnificent hair was as dark as ebony and long enough to serve her as a mantle. Chopin and Maria saw each other every evening at the house of her uncle, the Palatine Wodzinski. The latter concluded from their frequent tete-a-tete at the piano and in corners that some love-making was going on between them. When he found that his monitory coughs and looks produced no effect on his niece, he warned his sister-in-law. She, however, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... is the awful possibility that the neighbors at table may have nothing to say to each other; and in the best-selected company one may sit beside a stupid man—that is, stupid for the purpose of a 'tete-a-tete'. But this is not the worst of it. No one can talk well without an audience; no one is stimulated to say bright things except by the attention and questioning and interest of other minds. There is little inspiration in side talk to one or two. Nobody ought to go to a dinner ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... her word. She knew nothing of the finesse of diplomacy in the manipulation of her company. Her method was straightforward dragooning. Observing the persistent attempts of Dr. Bulling during the early part of the trip to secure Iola for a tete-a-tete, she called out across the deck in the ears of the whole company, "See here, Bulling, I won't have you trying to monopolise our star. We're out for a good time and we're going to have it. Miss Lane is not your property. She belongs to us all." Thenceforth Dr. Bulling, with what grace he could ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... arrangements respecting the house you will not leave them to be settled by cold lawyers or colder friends, who cannot enter into my feelings in regard to this place, or your own liberal and kindly feelings either. Let us settle it some day between ourselves," she added, with a light laugh, "in a tete-a-tete like this. I do not suppose you are afraid of being overreached by me in a bargain. But now let us turn our steps back towards the house, for I expect Mrs. Warmington early, and I must not be absent when ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... back kind of hot. "But Pyramid Gordon was white enough to want to divide his pile among the poor prunes he'd put out here and there along the way. You're on the list too, and the chief object of this little tete-a-tete is to frame up some plan ...
— Shorty McCabe on the Job • Sewell Ford
... but had re-entered the house unobserved, while Diana and Gustave were conversing close to the window, having preferred to leave his fly at the end of the street, rather than to incur the hazard of interrupting a critical tete-a-tete. The interval that had elapsed since his return had been spent by the Captain in his own bedchamber, and in the immediate neighbourhood of the folding-doors between that apartment and the parlour. What he had heard had been by no means satisfactory to him; and if a look could annihilate, ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... prophecy was fulfilled even before it was concluded. A group of loudly chattering girls and their escorts of the moment bore down upon Julia, and shattered the tete-a-tete. Dislodged from Julia's side by a large and eager girl, whom he had hated ever since she was six years old and he five, Noble found himself staggering in a kind of suburb; for the large girl's disregard of him, as she shouldered ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... with clic-clacs, of taking for a nuptial bed the bed of an inn, and of leaving behind them, in a commonplace chamber, at such a night, the most sacred of the souvenirs of life mingled pell-mell with the tete-a-tete of the conductor of the diligence and the maid-servant of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... not presented even the picture called for by the German libretto. Nevertheless, morn is dawning, birds are twittering, and the young lover, kneeling before his mistress on a divan, is bemoaning the fact that day is come and that he cannot publish his happiness to the world. The tete-a-tete is interrupted by a rude boor of a nobleman, who come to consult his cousin (the princess) about a messenger to send with the conventional offering of a silver rose to the daughter of a vulgar plebeian just elevated to the nobility because of his wealth. The conversation ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... dears, certainly, and talk—a little. Tete-a-tete, I do not say. I should think there he would be—a stick! All you English are. But what sort of a bow has he got, I ask you? How does he enter a room? And, then his smile! his laugh! He laughs like a horse—absolutely! There's no music in his smile. Oh! you should see ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... straight to the library. He knew the resources of his own mansion in the matter of nooks for a tete-a-tete interview; now he was particularly assisted by remembrance of Stewart's habits in the old days. He found his daughter and the mayor of Marion cozily ensconced among the cushions ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... to smoke his cigar in Mr. Sheldon's garden. Charlotte followed him with anxious eyes, and wondered at the sudden gravity of his manner. George Sheldon also was puzzled by his brother's desire for a tete-a-tete. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... restlessness in her manner, "that finishes the subject. You must please devote yourself to telling me at least some of the things I want to know. What is the use of having one of the world's successful men tete-a-tete, a prisoner to my hospitality, unless I can ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... corner of the white-and-gold restaurant at the Ritz on the following evening, Prince Shan and Immelan dined tete-a-tete, Immelan in the best of spirits, talking of the pleasant trifles of the world, drinking champagne and pointing out notabilities; Prince Shan, his features and expression unchanging, and his face as white as the perfectly fitting shirt he wore. His clothes were fashionable ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... came down to breakfast she was disappointed to find that Bud was not there, and she was obliged to suffer a breakfast tete-a-tete with West. By dint, however, of asking him questions instead of allowing him to take the initiative, she hurried through her breakfast quite successfully, acquiring a superficial knowledge of her fellow-boarder quite distant and satisfactory. She knew where he spent his college days and ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... was a species of abandon in her gaiety. Her exotic language embarrassed one who had been used to mariners' laconic directness of speech. She looked at him, teasing him with her eyes. He was a bit relieved when the pale-faced secretary came dragging himself up the ladder and broke in on the tete-a-tete. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... golden velvet hangings which shrouded the entrance to the dimly lighted conservatory, he espied a half-dozen couples disposed on as many small benches under the drooping fronds in varied attitudes of tete-a-tete. ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts
... across the danger line. But to compare any one of the men in Lady Bazelhurst's house party—oh, it was absurd! She looked them over. Dull-eyed, blase, frayed by the social whirl, worn out, pulseless, all of them. They talked automobile, bridge, women, and self in particular; in the seclusion of a tete-a-tete they talked love with an ardor that lost most of its danger because it was from force of habit. One of the men was even now admitting in her ear that he had not spent an evening alone with his wife ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... advanced to such a point that a clattering noise within the tabernacle, as of machinery put in motion, intimated to the travellers that Freya, who perhaps had some qualities in common with the classical Vesta, thought a personal interruption of this tete-a-tete ought to be deferred no longer. The curtains flew open, and the massive and awkward idol, who, we may suppose, resembled in form the giant created by Frankenstein, leapt lumbering from the carriage, and, rushing on the intrusive traveller, dealt him, with its wooden hands and arms, such ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... gentleman, who had been the third at the ordinary, and would take no part either in the conversation or in Pogson's champagne, now took up his hat, and, grunting, left the room, when the happy bagman had the delight of a tete-a-tete. The Baroness did not appear inclined to move: it was cold; a fire was comfortable, and she had ordered none in her apartment. Might Pogson give her one more glass of champagne, or would her ladyship prefer "something hot." Her ladyship ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... "that the Pastor and Helga might come to us to-morrow, John, and that, as you are so impatient for a tete-a-tete interview with Helga, you can have a ramble in your woods at Rosendal, while I discuss the matters that have to be ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary |
