"Tete-a-tete" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when they had met at Newquay in Cornwall over a tete-a-tete lunch, he had said, in reply to her banter, that Louise was a darling! That he was awfully fond of her, that she had the most wonderful eyes, and that she was always alert and full of a ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... which disturb it and cause fermentation. Many Opponents are in prison, many have retired from their dioceses, while the rest are brought to Paris and cunningly worked upon, each member in turn, apart and confined, tete-a-tete with the Minister of Worship, until all, one by one, are brought to sign the formula of adhesion. On the strength of this, the council, purged and prepared, is summoned afresh to give its vote sitting or standing, in one unique ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 6 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 2 (of 2) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... assure you, 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 ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... mother of a family, and as the first lady in the town, and as a matron who had never before been suspected of things of the kind, she was highly offended when she heard the stories, and very justly so: with the result that her poor young daughter, though innocent, had to endure about as unpleasant a tete-a-tete as ever befell a maiden of sixteen, while, for his part, the Swiss footman received orders never at any time to admit ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... spirits, retired to his room for a quiet morning. The prospect for the afternoon pleased him greatly, and a long tete-a-tete with Annie among the grand and beautiful solitudes of nature had for him an attraction that he ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... odds, Captain Dacres had already sent a challenge, with his compliments, to Commodore Rodgers of the United States frigate President, saying that he would be very happy to meet him or any other American frigate of equal force, off Sandy Hook, "for the purpose of having a few minutes' tete-a-tete." It was therefore with the utmost willingness that the Constitution and the Guerriere hoisted their battle ensigns and approached each other warily for an hour while they played at long bowls, as was the custom, each hoping to disable the other's ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... the stranger if he would not serve instead of begging. And he protests, "I am a Dervish at the door of Allah." "And I am a Spirit in Allah's house," she rejoins. They enter: and the parley in the vestibule is followed by a tete-a-tete in the parlour and another in the dining-room. They agree: and the stranger is made a member of the Spiritual Household, which now consists of her and him, the Medium and ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... "I trust I have not disturbed you. I had no idea I should interrupt a tete-a-tete. Are you satisfied as to the ...
— A Man to His Mate • J. Allan Dunn
... are a very brave young man," she replied with a roguish look at Bennett's discomfiture over the interruption of the tete-a-tete. ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... bright scarlet and glared before him at the uniformed official, who was regarding their tete-a-tete with the indulgent eye of one who has been through this sort of thing himself. "I say, look ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... of young men pay few, if any, party calls, because they work and they exercise, and whatever time is left over, if any, is spent in their club or at the house of a young woman, not tete-a-tete, but invariably playing bridge. The Sunday afternoon visits that the youth of another generation used always to pay, are unknown in this, because every man who can, spends the ...
— Etiquette • Emily Post
... While I was ushered into the princess's room, he remained with the countess in the ante-chamber: in spite of the people and servants who were hanging about, I doubt not that they managed a tete-a-tete; but I had no leisure to think of them, for I was playing the most delicate move in all my difficult game. I had to keep the princess devoted to me—and yet indifferent to me: I had to show affection for her—and not feel it. I had to make love for another, and that to ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... Beauties and the beribboned bonbon box was taking her coffee as usual in bed. This luxurious habit had never been hers until she came to Bel-Air; but it was her mother's custom, and rather than undergo a tete-a-tete breakfast with her host, she ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... major," answered 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
... was a mere man of the world, with no feeling of any kind: tolerable in company, but tiresome beyond description in a tete-a-tete. I did not choose that he should bestow all his tediousness ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... went 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 ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... now in the new Forty-second Street offices that commanded a view of two rivers and a vast battledoor and shuttlecock of the city, it was the first time in all those years that stretched from the night at the Waldorf that they had sat thus tete-a-tete. The day of the move she had ridden up from the old Union Square offices with him, a stack of files in her lap. Once, too, on a Saturday, the day of Zoe's invariable luncheon downtown and subsequent opera matinee, he had strolled by what seemed mischievous chance ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... having a tete-a-tete with her, but as it fell out he did. They were all in the rectory garden together, Gerald and the rector a little behind Miss Gaylord and himself, as they strolled down a long walk with high hedges ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... utmost tact on his part did he finally succeed in establishing tete-a-tete relations with Cornelia herself; and even then if the house had been a tower ten stories high, Cornelia's mother, rustling up the stairs, could not have swished her skirts any more definitely like ...
— Molly Make-Believe • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... the hall was Mrs Gaskoin's boudoir, where she and her husband were sitting over the fire, awaiting the result of the tete-a-tete in the drawing-room. ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... tell me how it happened that you're here," he hinted, looking at her over the saddle. He had apparently forgotten that he had intended leaving the horse saddled until he had rested and eaten—and truly it would be a shame to hurry from so unexpected a tete-a-tete. ...
— The Long Shadow • B. M. Bower
... they had 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 ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... never did I have a moment's time to regard my inner self in the mirror of consciousness. No mental analysis now; no long hours of retrospection, no tete-a-tete interviews with my soul. At times I felt as if I had lost my identity. I was a slave of the genie Gold, releasing it from its prison in the frozen bowels of the earth. I was an automaton turning a crank in the frozen stillness of the long, ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... ignore my just complaint, By Hokey-Pokey! I'll turn saint!" Now, the Republicans, who all Are saints, began at once to bawl Against his competition; so There was a devil of a go! They locked horns with him, tete-a-tete In acrimonious debate, Till Democrats, forlorn and lone, Had hopes of coming by their own. That evil to avert, in haste The two belligerents embraced; But since 'twere wicked to relax A tittle of the Sacred Tax, 'Twas finally ...
— The Devil's Dictionary • Ambrose Bierce
... had begun bringing in his damned psychology again! Porfiry? But to think that Porfiry should for one moment believe that Nikolay was guilty, after what had passed between them before Nikolay's appearance, after that tete-a-tete interview, which could have only one explanation? (During those days Raskolnikov had often recalled passages in that scene with Porfiry; he could not bear to let his mind rest on it.) Such words, such gestures ...
— Crime and Punishment • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... dropping to the back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape up to the top flat—something a copper would never think of—and went through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tete-a-tete Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks. Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted it." The criminal's voice ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... came," he muttered, as soon as he was once more alone. "Wynston is provoking and fiery, too. Were I, in my present mood, to seek a tete-a-tete with him, who knows what might come of it? Blood; my own heart whispers—blood! I'll not ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... inoffensive Americanisms and unfailing kindliness; and with her friends she was frankness itself. With two men on Miss Reynier's hands for entertainment, it seemed to Aleck unlikely that either one could make any alarming progress. Besides, he was glad of a tete-a-tete ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... in proposing this tete-a-tete drive which was so contrary to our habits? What was his motive: the wish to show me that he had not even understood my attack, or the yearning of the sick man ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne
... "But tete-a-tete. Send the guards to take their meal in the canteen of Monsieur de Chavigny; we'll have a supper ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Dick's carefully manipulated advertising campaign and personal efforts among his friends and business associates, they were not by any means the first arrivals. Half a dozen laughing groups were distributed about the round tables in the center space, while several tete-a-tete couples were confidentially ensconced in corners and at cozy tables for two, craftily sheltered by some of the most imposing of ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... 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, oddly remet at ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... one arrived, Raeburn and Erica 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 again into irresistible ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... sitting till next day, and, having ordered a horse to be saddled, she set out for Hermitage Castle, where Bothwell was living, and covered the distance at a stretch, although it was twenty miles, and she had to go across woods, marshes, and rivers; then, having remained some hours tete-a-tete with him, she set out again with the same sped for Jedburgh, to which she returned ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... entertainment. Then there 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 ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... means satisfied with or interested in the proposed tete-a-tete. "Hev ye looked in the bresh" (i. e., brush or underwood) "for him?" ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... 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 ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... 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 ...
— The Paris Sketch Book Of Mr. M. A. Titmarsh • William Makepeace Thackeray
... him with a painful and almost fierce expression. One day she repelled with 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 ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... for interrupting your tete-a-tete, but do you know who has charge of the games?" ...
— The Girl Scouts' Good Turn • Edith Lavell
... 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
... myself alone at the table. You must not suppose our tete-a-tete was long, but it was a lively period while it lasted. He drank like a fish or an Englishman; shouted, beat the table, roared out songs, quarrelled, made it up again, and at last tried to throw the dinner-plates through the window, ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 I DETEST, it is DATES," ...
— An Ambitious Man • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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 their ...
— Patty's Butterfly Days • Carolyn Wells
... at being pounced upon, but that might be merely because he was balked of a tete-a-tete with herself. For while Clara went on to the gate with their hostess he lingered a ...
— The Coast of Chance • Esther Chamberlain
... 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 ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... for girls to suggest a walk, ride, hint a wish to dance or row, or tacitly invite a tete-a-tete. Let those who wish such favors ask for them. The girl who shows herself most anxious for young men's attentions generally receives fewest. Despite "the woman's movement," man still insists on his ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... thoughts to her because of whom he can find no repose; and yet he has plenty of time and opportunity to speak, if he were not afraid of being repelled; for now he can see her every day, and sit beside her "tete-a-tete" without opposition or hindrance, for no one sees ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... sit on the little sofa by her, and she looked at him so fondly that I thought perhaps Lord Doraine might not like it. He tried not to see, but Mr. Wertz did, and I think he must have a kind heart, because he fidgeted so, and almost at once went and joined them to break up the tete-a-tete, so that Lord Doraine might not be teased any more, I suppose. And every one went to bed rather early, because of the ball and shoot to-morrow, and I must jump in too, as I am sleepy, so good-night, dearest ...
— The Visits of Elizabeth • Elinor Glyn
... who, 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 promise called up in his mind, the society of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the 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
... end of the sentence, however, for I knew that then came the slow torture of a tete-a-tete day with the Major, stinging sarcasms, humiliating scoldings, vexations ...
— Derrick Vaughan—Novelist • Edna Lyall
... the polished floor; and I became keenly conscious that my trowsers were not perfectly pressed. I should, of course, have worn my tail-coat. There were several ladies there receiving guests that afternoon. I had a tete-a-tete with one of these, who gossiped pleasantly about the cakes—I was to get some cakes. The nicest cakes at the "Queen Elizabeth," it seems, are of two kinds: "Maids of Court" and "Ladies in Waiting." Our neighbourhood ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... Cherry, and all were sent off in sound condition. No catastrophe occurred; and the continual occupation and responsibility drove away all the low spirits that so often had tried the home-keeping girl. She did enjoy those tete-a-tete evenings, when Felix opened to her more than he had ever done before; and yet it was an immense relief to have the day fixed for Wilmet's return, and how much more to have her walking into the room with all the children ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • 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 Judge Blodgett ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... came to the rescue, and at last, by his all-entrancing skill, so ravished the whole party of knights and nobles, that the lovers were able to enjoy a tete-a-tete, and pledged mutual vows. As usual, the parents yielded when they found it was useless to resist; and, no doubt, the poet Craftine, who, poet and all as he was, nearly lost his head in the adventure, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... said Mrs. Hardy, "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 arranged ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... me, and when they were seated my amazement grew again, for I saw that his companion was the girl Una—Una Habberton who had called herself Smith. Their appearance at this moment together found me at a loss to know what to do. To get up and join them would interfere with a tete-a-tete which, whatever its planning, I deemed most fortunate; to get up and leave the room without being observed would have been impossible, for Jerry faced the door. So I sat debating the matter, watching the face of ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... girl approved her escort's manner and bearing as unexceptionable. No sooner had they entered into the implied intimacy of the tete-a-tete across a table than a subtle change manifested itself in his attitude. Gayety was still the keynote of his talk, but the note of the personal and insistent had gone. And, at the end, when he had paid the ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... blue gown Betty 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
... 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. ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... 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 frown ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... 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
... she responded, and as she flashed a glance at me, I had a glimpse of what it might mean to be friends with Florence Lloyd without the ugly shadow between us that now was spoiling our tete-a-tete. ...
— The Gold Bag • Carolyn Wells
... 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 ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... 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
... flashed sufficient message to redden Longstreet's cheeks and make his own eyes burn with embarrassment. And since it was obvious that henceforward the combat must be waged in the open, she did not await the unlikely opportunity of some distant tete-a-tete to emphasize her intention. Before she mounted she managed to allow the glowingly embarrassed man to hold her two hands; and ...
— The Desert Valley • Jackson Gregory
... vain, at first, Abner Nott 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
... awnings, and sheltered from the boisterous afternoon trade winds by the opposite side of the court. But Susy did not seem inclined to linger there long that morning, in spite of Mrs. Peyton's evident desire for a maternal tete-a-tete. The nervous preoccupation and capricious ennui of an indulged child showed in her pretty but discontented face, and knit her curved eyebrows, and Peyton saw a look of pain pass over his wife's face as the young girl ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... day's end. And nobody worries them at all. There has not been the faintest suspicion of an insult or an advance from any one of the thousands of men and boys of all classes whom they have ridden with upon their 'lifts,' sometimes in dense crowds, sometimes in an involuntary tete-a-tete. ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... Really, I almost feel as if I were interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame. I haven't heard anything so old-fashioned and conservative as that sigh since I have been in California. I thought you never had ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... explain yourself. You are safe in my company now. Possibly I was mistook, but I supposed you not unwilling for our tete-a-tete. Accept my apologies if this is not the case. I thrust no attentions ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... visit to Mrs. Allen, in which Henry talked at random, without sense or connection, and Catherine, rapt in the contemplation of her own unutterable happiness, scarcely opened her lips, dismissed them to the ecstasies of another tete-a-tete; and before it was suffered to close, she was enabled to judge how far he was sanctioned by parental authority in his present application. On his return from Woodston, two days before, he had been met near the abbey by ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... his plate. Ford devoted himself for the moment to the deaf Miss Van Bruce, and when he turned back to Alicia he was telegraphing with his eyes for discretion. She understood, and the low-toned tete-a-tete was not resumed. Later, when they had a moment together in the dispersion from the breakfast-table, he tried to apologize for what he was pleased to call his "playing of the baby act." But she reassured him ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... This was in a tete-a-tete, in the family room, whither I had led Lucy, feeling that this little ceremony was due to my wife. Everything around us recalled former scenes, and tears were in the eyes of my bride as she gently extricated ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... have really talked myself out of breath; but that is always the way, with me, as you know, of old." And the two girls, hand-in-hand, ran lightly up stairs, where Elinor, making an excuse of Mrs. Taylor's note, left them to a confidential tete-a-tete. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... Southey's JOAN OF ARC. The lady Imogine, who has been, (as is the case, she tells us, with all soft and solemn spirits,) worshipping the moon on a terrace or rampart within view of the Castle, insists on having an interview with our hero, and this too tete-a-tete. Would the reader learn why and wherefore the confidante is excluded, who very properly remonstrates against such "conference, alone, at night, with one who bears such fearful form;" the reason follows—"why, ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... invitation to dine with her on that very day, and went on board to dress himself as fine for her as he had for the widow Vandersloosh. The lovely widow admired his uniform, and gave him many gentle hints upon which he might speak: but this did not take place until a tete-a-tete after dinner, when he was sitting on a sofa with her (not on such a fubsy sofa as that of Frau Vandersloosh, but one worked in tapestry); much in the same position as we once introduced him to the reader, to wit, with the lady's hand in his. ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... explore—to ravage the country," she gayly explained the emptiness of the large hall, where the grouped chairs seemed recently vacated and pleasantly suggestive of suspended tete-a-tete. "I've had Rose before," Mrs. Manstey pursued, taking them up the stairs to their rooms, "but not you!" She gave Edith's shoulder an affectionate little pat. She thought the younger girl extremely beautiful—which she was, with a vivid, ...
— Quaint Courtships • Howells & Alden, Editors
... fly to obey 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 when he was ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... really 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 ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Merivale, Kinglake, and Stirling, I hurried off to the House." In later years, when his voice grew low and his hearing difficult, he preferred that the diners should resolve themselves into little groups, assigning to himself a tete-a-tete, with whom at his ease he ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... deserted, a dry wind stirred the dust here and there; the moon shone through a rift in the clouds and lighted the spot where the man slept. So I found myself tete-a-tete with this boor, who, not suspecting my presence, was sleeping on that stone bench as peacefully as if in ...
— Child of a Century, Complete • Alfred de Musset
... You ought to know. I suppose you thought I was bringing you up here for a Romeo and Juliet tete-a-tete with the beautiful Miss Cameron,—and for nothing else. Well, in a way, you are right. But, first of all, my business is to recover the crown jewels and parchments. I am going into that house and take them away from the man you know ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... evening was at an end she was very happy. In an hour's tete-a-tete with Mr. Casaubon she talked to him with more freedom than she had ever felt before, even pouring out her joy at the thought of devoting herself to him, and of learning how she might best share and further all his great ends. Mr. Casaubon was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... manner to address her whom he had been lately so anxious to meet with, and embarrassed by a TETE-A-TETE to which his own timid inexperience, gave some awkwardness, the party had proceeded more than a hundred yards before Darsie assumed courage to accost, or even to look at, his companion. Sensible, however, of the impropriety of his silence, he turned to speak to her; and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... breaking up their mystery 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 ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... feel that she should be more at ease when she was not always in dread of interrupting a tete-a-tete, and when there was no longer any need to force Emma into society, and see her put on that resigned countenance which expressed that it was all filial duty to a mother who knew no better. Moreover, Lady ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the young girl began to pour out the tea, but Jack remained in his seat by the window. It was a singular sensation which he did not care to disturb. It was no new thing for Mr. Hamlin to find himself at a tete-a-tete repast with the admiring and complaisant fair; there was a 'cabinet particulier' in a certain San Francisco restaurant which had listened to their various vanities and professions of undying faith; he might have recalled certain ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... countess was so tired that she gave orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to dinner all who came "to congratulate." The countess wished to have a tete-a-tete talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna Mikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from Petersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew her chair nearer to ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... years of his life I breakfasted alone with Sir Charles whenever he was at Pyrford. It was his "softer hour," and showed him in a specially endearing light. Not only was he fresh from his night's rest, full, often, of matter interesting or amusing in his letters which he had just read, but the tete-a-tete brought out his finest social nature. In large companies, as we saw him at Dockett, he was occasionally insistent, iterative, expressing himself, to use a term of his own, with a "fierceness" corresponding to ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... concur in stating that to a brilliant understanding, he joined the most captivating person. We accordingly find that the Dutchess of Burgundy and several others were by no means cruel to him; and he had been supping tete-a-tete with Queen Isabeau de Baviere, when, in returning home, he was assassinated on the twenty-third of November 1407. His amorous intrigues at last proved fatal to the English, as you will learn from the following story, related by the ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... remained leaning over the balcony, side by side, touching elbows, with their heads overhanging the darkness of the street, and the brilliantly lighted sala at their backs. This was a tete-a-tete of extreme impropriety; something of which in the whole extent of the Republic only the extraordinary Antonia could be capable—the poor, motherless girl, never accompanied, with a careless father, who had thought only of making her learned. Even Decoud himself ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... (the latter was the fact); so she said nothing, but lay down without disturbing her. She could not sleep, however, and toward morning Julia called out, in no very gentle tones, "Do lie still, Fan, or else get up and go down in the parlor and have another tete-a-tete with Dr. Lacey." ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes
... 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 ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... potatoe? You 'a brother' (of the quill) too, 'near the throne,' to confide to a man's own publisher (who has 'bought,' or rather sold, 'golden opinions' about him) such a damnatory parenthesis! 'Between you and me,' quotha—it reminds me of a passage in the Heir at Law—'Tete-a-tete with Lady Duberly, I suppose.'—'No—tete-a-tete with five hundred people;' and your confidential communication will doubtless be in circulation to that amount, in a short time, with several additions, and in several letters, ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... in the first of their tete-a-tete, she sounded him cautiously, trying to discover if his feelings toward Linton were inspired wholly by political differences. She seemed to suspect there was something more behind it, even at the risk of flattering herself. But she had detected certain suggestive symptoms ...
— The Ramrodders - A Novel • Holman Day
... 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
... 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 ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... obstinately in Maud Matchin's mind. She gave herself no rest from dwelling on them. Her imagination was full, day after day, of glowing pictures of herself and Farnham in tete-a-tete; she would seek in a thousand ways to tell her love—but she could never quite arrange her avowal in a satisfactory manner. Long before she came to the decisive words which were to kindle his heart to flame in the imaginary dialogue, he would himself take fire by spontaneous combustion, ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... inane, tawdry, inconsequent; so she waited, patiently happy, taking no count of time, nor the sunshine, nor the lilt of the birds, nor even the dissolution of conventionality in the unsupervised tete-a-tete. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... then left tete-a-tete. He had on his face no appearance of disquietude or menace; decidedly he ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... roundabout for a bit, and then had the fortune to fall off into a tete-a-tete with a lady whom my aunt introduced as Mrs. Mumble—but then she introduced everybody to me as Mumble that afternoon, either by way of humour ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... 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
... 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, ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... on the tendency to tete-a-tete between Mrs. Pendleton and Mr. Barlow became more marked. They lingered nightly in the chilly parlor in the glamour of the red lamp after the other guests had left. It was discovered that they had twice gone to the theater together. The art student had met them coming in ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VII. (of X.) • Various
... me; on the contrary I had many a tete-a-tete with her, for her mother and sister were anxious for me to deposit some part of my pension in the Musical Banks, this being in accordance with the dictates of their goddess Ydgrun, of whom both Mrs. ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... Their tete-a-tete was uninterrupted for an hour; and although nothing that would be called decided, by an experienced matron, was said by the gentleman, he uttered a thousand things that delighted his companion, who retired to her rest with a lighter heart than she had felt since the arrest of her ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... some traveler might come to the inn, with whom he could chat in the evening. On the days when his work was done early, he had, for want of something else to do, to come punctually, and endure from soup to cheese a tete-a-tete with Binet. It was therefore with delight that he accepted the landlady's suggestion that he should dine in company with the newcomers, and they passed into the large parlour where Madame Lefrancois, for the purpose of showing off, had had the table ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... was cook to ——-, and a friend of Beccari, whom he came to visit; that he had mistaken the staircase, and, finding all the doors open, he had wandered into the room in which I found him, and which he would have instantly left: I rang; Guimard came, and was astonished enough at finding me tete-a-tete with a man in his shirt. He begged Guimard to go with him into another room, and to search his whole person. After this, the poor devil returned, and put on his coat. Guimard said to me, 'He is certainly an honest man, and tells the truth; this may, besides, be easily ascertained.' ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various
... for a time, then smiled as they walked away to discover a cozy retreat behind one of the giant smoke-stacks, where they could enjoy a tete-a-tete without interruption. When she turned to hear what her brother John was saying, she found Tom ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... street he felt sad and uncomfortable. Count de Vaudrec's face was constantly before him. It seemed to him that the man was displeased at finding him tete-a-tete with Mme. Forestier, though why he should be, he could ...
— Bel Ami • Henri Rene Guy de Maupassant
... and had just made such a sacrifice to please her. She consented to accept his declaration and permitted him to believe that she was not unmoved by his passion. The arrival of the Duchess, her mother-in-law, put an end to this tete-a-tete, and prevented the Duc from demonstrating his ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... faithful hound Breaks rudely on our tete-a-tete; Too well I understand that sound! A mendicant is at ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... was in the throes of explaining this thing in guarded fashion to Steve and Steve was arguing angrily and begging for his welcome, Trudy Vondeplosshe happened in unexpectedly and very much rejoiced inwardly at finding this delightful little tete-a-tete in ...
— The Gorgeous Girl • Nalbro Bartley
... too glad," said Jimmy, delighted to be able to prolong his tete-a-tete with this gracefully angular young woman with blue eyes and red hair, who spoke with the "tongue of angels" and had the same yearnings he did for corn-bread and fried chicken ...
— Molly Brown's Senior Days • Nell Speed
... might serve as a lesson. Proof against every breath of scandal herself, Janet King never uttered and never encouraged one ill-natured word against another. But I am afraid, my dear fellow, that I must leave you to a tete-a-tete with Eleanor. You know that I must be at the House this evening—I only paired ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... character. Even the woman of the world looks with approbation upon the doings of a congener, when they do not come into collision with her own; even the everyday married lady bends her head confidentially towards her double, as they sit side by side, and rises from the tete-a-tete charmed and edified: the managing partner alone is solitary and unsocial. This is demanded by the lofty nature of her duties. Every business, great and small, should have a single head to direct; and she feels satisfied, after dispassionate reflection, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... 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 ran delightfully. Rosina, liberally ...
— A Woman's Will • Anne Warner
... the possibility and the impossibility, and afterwards see who is the man who says he is the author of the distich, for there are extraordinary people in the world. My brother, in short, ought to have composed the distich, because he says so, and because he confided it to me tete-a-tete. I had, it is true, difficulty in believing him; but what is one to do? Either one must believe, or suppose him capable of telling a lie which could only be told by a fool; and that is impossible, for all Europe knows that my brother is not ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... at her elbow with pad and pencil poised for her order, unconscious also of her husband, now her happy tete-a-tete, she spoke aloud: ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 5, 1920 • Various
... that it might be convenient for the landlord to favor him with his company over a bottle of wine. This was the almost invariable plan adopted, when he was unaccompanied with his 'better half.' It will readily be conceived that in these tete-a-tete gossipings, a great fund of anecdote and legendary tales had been gleaned, which were made subservient to the entertainment of friends when assembled around the social board. It is from this fund of gossip to which I have so often listened, that I propose to select one ...
— The Knickerbocker, or New-York Monthly Magazine, April 1844 - Volume 23, Number 4 • Various
... 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 ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... I was leaving town. I had not time to ask him any particulars about you, and indeed he is not exactly the man from whom I would ask news about my friends. I dined tete-a-tete with him some time ago, and he served up his friends as he served up his fish, with a squeeze of lemon over each. It was very piquant, but it rather set my ...
— Washington Irving • Henry W. Boynton
... situation, station; fundament, buttocks, bottom, breech; chair, sofa, tete-a-tete, divan, settee; banquette, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 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 ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... plenteously footmen abounded before 1790, and how steadily their numbers have declined ever since. I do not dispute the statistics. One knows from the Table Talk of Samuel Rogers that Mr. Horne Tooke, dining tete-a-tete with the first Lord Lansdowne, had counted so many as thirty footmen in attendance on the meal. That was a high figure—higher than in Rogers' day, and higher far, I doubt not, than in ours. What I refuse to believe is that the wearing of powder ...
— And Even Now - Essays • Max Beerbohm
... she was delighted. She had not seen the teacher more than to say "how-de-do" since their rather warm discussion before the date of the town meeting. Now she put herself in the way of meeting him where they might have a tete-a-tete. ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... was taken of her birthday. After keeping me for two hours and a half she dismissed me; and I am sure I could not say what she said, except that it was an olio of decousus and heterogeneous things, partaking of the characteristics of her mother, grafted on a younger scion. I dined tete-a-tete with my dear old aunt: hers is always a sweet and ...
— Memoirs of Mr. Charles J. Yellowplush - The Yellowplush Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as scowling as she could have wished. While the officers 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
... to this 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 ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... unaffected. Her Ladyship's reserve wore away. She refused to dance, but conversed with more animation. The Duke did not leave her side. The women began to stare, the men to bet: Lady Aphrodite against the field. In vain his Grace laid a thousand plans to arrange a tea-room tete-a-tete. He was unsuccessful. As he was about to return to the charge her Ladyship desired a passer-by to summon her carriage. No time was to be lost. The Duke began to talk hard about his old friend and schoolfellow, Sir Lucius. A greenhorn would have thought it madness to take an interest ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... the fields at this time of day is hardly fitting for young ladies to take alone," said Mr. Lathom, anxious no doubt to escape from his tete-a-tete drive with my lady, and possibly not quite prepared to go to the illegal length of prompt measures, which she had ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... quickly did he absorb information, imitate fashions, and get rid of provincial manners and prejudices. His friends never knew where he learned anything. When a Frenchman of title was basking in New York drawing-rooms it was found that Millard was equal to a tete-a-tete with the monolingual foreigner, though his accent was better than his vocabulary was copious. His various accomplishments of course represented many hours of toil, but it was toil of which his associates never heard. He treated himself as a work of art, of which the beholder ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... to her, and said: "My dear Bertha, since this singular chance has brought up together after a separation of six years—a quite friendly separation—are we to continue to look upon each other as irreconcilable enemies? We are shut up together, tete-a-tete, which is so much the better or so much the worse. I am not going to get into another carriage, so don't you think it is preferable to talk as friends till the end ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... interesting faces. My fingers itch to make a sketch of them, but only Steinlen could draw these Parisian types who seem to belong to some literary or Bohemian coterie. What can they be doing at the Ministry of War? They smoke cigarettes incessantly, talk in whispers tete-a-tete, or stare up at the steel casques and cuirasses on the walls, or at the great glass candelabra above their heads as though they can only keep their patience in check by gazing fixedly at some immovable object. Among the gilded chairs ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... malice. Believe me if I go to the Opera, I shall be as surprised to find myself there as you were to find yourself supping tete-a-tete with a ...
— The Queen's Necklace • Alexandre Dumas pere
... terror, and possessed by a sweet distress at finding himself tete-a-tete with the lady, looked at the ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... first time in her days, Was much embarrassed, never having met In all her life with aught save prayers and praise; And as she also risked her life to get Him whom she meant to tutor in love's ways Into a comfortable tete-a-tete, To lose the hour would make her quite a martyr, And they had wasted now almost ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 6 • Lord Byron
... like Trenor's unusual excitability, with its too evident explanation, and the thought of being alone with him, with her friend out of reach upstairs, at the other end of the great empty house, did not conduce to a desire to prolong their TETE-A-TETE. ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... during the afternoon, he could not bring about another tete-a-tete with Diana. Finally as dusk drew near, he threw himself down, under the cedar tree, his eyes sadly watching the evening mists rise over the river. His dark figure merged with the shadow of the cedar and Na-che and Jonas, establishing themselves on the gunwale of the Ida for one of their ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... incautiously admitted that he had some 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 ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... door came stealing the soft music of a waltz, while from another corner came the sound of a whispered tete-a-tete. Very still was the girl as she sat in the big arm-chair, with the man pleading passionately at her side. Once she caught her breath quickly when he recalled the time gone by—the time before her ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... enough, but what was it to Perkins's? Fancy his blank surprise and rage at having his love thus suddenly ravished from him, and his delicious tete-a-tete interrupted. He managed, in an inconceivably short space of time, to conjure up half-a-million obstacles to his union. What should he do? he would rush on to Baker Street, and wait there until his ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray |
