"Tete-a-tete" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... two have their limits of 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 side talk to ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... 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 ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... 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 ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... In a tete-a-tete one should talk about persons, and in general Society about things. The state of the weather is always an excusable exordium, but it is convenient to have a paradox or heresy on the subject always ready so as to direct the conversation into other channels. Really domestic ...
— Reviews • Oscar Wilde
... particulars which he talked over with the authoress in a promenade on the platform while Dolores was left in the waiting-room; but afterwards he indulged his niece with a tete-a-tete, asking her father's address, and mourning over the length of time it would take to obtain an answer from Fiji. Mr. Mohun had promised to help him, solemnly and kindly promised, for the sake of her whom they had both loved so much, and here he was, cut ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... she avoided 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. Nosnibor and Zulora were great devotees. I was not sure whether I ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler
... of 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 bordering it. ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... 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 as Loeb,—if he has them. If he hasn't them, ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... jolting their paradise in a posting-chaise, of 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 of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... temporary candour shut up; the little, red-coloured, 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
... already gone; and it was no news to the cure that the younger brother was not living at Cap Martin. Angelo referred to this change of plan, saying laughingly that no doubt the foolish boy feared to interrupt a tete-a-tete. Nonsense this, of course; for the honeymoon had extended itself over months, and the Princess was anxious to see as much as possible of her new brother-in-law. Angelo, too, particularly wished Vanno to love Marie as a sister, and report well of her to the Duke, whose ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... 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 mother's political ambitions had ruthlessly waged war on her, and done their best ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... mouth, most expressive of all his 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 ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... 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 them from ...
— Led Astray and The Sphinx - Two Novellas In One Volume • Octave Feuillet
... 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
... means," I said. "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
... connection with Kitty, 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 amongst his books. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... scrutiny, but Nigel spoke to him almost 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. ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... 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 ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... wishing that Clara should first see Colonel Le Noir with other company, to have an opportunity of observing him well and possibly forming an estimate of his character (as a young girl of her fine instincts might well do) before she should be exposed in a tete-a-tete to those deceptive blandishments he knew so well how ...
— Hidden Hand • Emma Dorothy Eliza Nevitte Southworth
... situation, station; fundament, buttocks, bottom, breech; chair, sofa, tete-a-tete, divan, settee; banquette, dickey, rumble; bench, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 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 ...
— The Trail of '98 - A Northland Romance • Robert W. Service
... prologue to its elucidation, conducted the Baroness into the summer-house that his grandfather, good Duke Augustus, erected in the Gardens of Breschau, close to the Fountain of the Naiads, and had en tete-a-tete explained his notion. There were post-horses in Noumaria; there was also an unobstructed road that led you to Vienna, and thence to the world outside; and he proposed, in short, to quiet the grumbling of the discontented Noumarians by a second, and this ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... "forgive me if for a moment I forgot how altered things are. Indeed, it was not a matter of choice with me. Of course, it will give me the greatest pleasure to dine tete-a-tete with you!" ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... an evening, when they were enjoying a tete-a-tete by the fireside, she would place on the tea table the leather box containing the "trash," as M. Lantin called it. She would examine the false gems with a passionate attention as though they were in some way connected with a deep and secret joy; and she often insisted on passing a necklace around ...
— Selected Writings of Guy de Maupassant • Guy de Maupassant
... other side of 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 ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... tete-a-tete going on behind the azalea, and Steve grinned as he peeped, then grew sober and said in a tone of despair: "If you had seen the pains I took with that fellow, the patience with which I brushed his wig, the time I spent trying to convince him that he must wear thin boots, and the fight I had ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... that the face of the chevalier does not appear? is he too much occupied with his chicken to have heard the carriage? Let us see. As to you, monseigneur," continued Dubois, "be assured; I will not disturb your tete-a-tete. Enjoy at your pleasure this commencement of ingenuity, which promises such happy results. Ah! monseigneur, it is ...
— The Regent's Daughter • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... bracket, yoke; conduplicate^; 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 ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... more at Fernley House; peace and cheerfulness, and much joy. It was not the same peace as of old, when Margaret and her uncle lived their quiet tete-a-tete life, and nothing came to break the even calm of the days. Very different was the life of to-day. The peace was spiritual purely, for the lively and varied round of daily life gave little time for repose and meditation, at least for Margaret. She had begun to give the children short ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... not seem overly pleased when his tete-a-tete luncheon was interrupted by Bobby and Mr. Spratt, but the Signorina Nora very quickly made it apparent that business was business. Arrangements were promptly made to attach the carload of effects for back salaries ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... the fact. Simpkins never passed the black altar without a backward glance, as if he were fearful of an attack from behind. And he had determined that nothing should tempt him to a tete-a-tete with the statue behind the veil. But having so senseless, so cowardly a feeling was one thing, and letting Mrs. Athelstone know it another. So he ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... you agreeable and hated. Your conversation will be listened to with interest, and your company shunned with horror. You will obtain the reputation of a gossip and a scandal-bearer, and you will soon be obliged either to purchase a razor or apply for a passport. If you are holding a tete-a-tete with a notorious Mrs. Candour, then, indeed, your tongue should be as sharp and nimble as the forked lightning. You must beat her at her own weapons, and convince her that it would be dangerous to traduce ...
— The Laws of Etiquette • A Gentleman
... their shining plates, only caught the oak of his box-door; and the tete-a-tete in the sultry, oppressive night went on as the speakers moved to a prudent distance; one of them thoughtfully chewing a bit of straw, after the immemorial habit of grooms, who ever seem as if they had been born into this world with a cornstalk ...
— Under Two Flags • Ouida [Louise de la Ramee]
... Half a dozen couples danced lazily in the central dancing space. Other couples remained tete-a-tete in ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... 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
... in order that Marguerite might rest there, no longer visited it, fearing to find himself in the midst of a large and merry company, by whom he did not wish to be seen. This came about through his having once arrived to dine tete-a-tete with Marguerite, and having fallen upon a party of fifteen, who were still at lunch at an hour when he was prepared to sit down to dinner. He had unsuspectingly opened the dining-room door, and had been ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... Though he was assimilated into the party 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
... hour before he returned. When he did, it was to find Hazen and the lawyer awaiting him in ill-concealed impatience. These two were much too incongruous in tastes and interests to be very happy in a forced and prolonged tete-a-tete. ...
— The Chief Legatee • Anna Katharine Green
... my faithful hound Breaks rudely on our tete-a-tete; Too well I understand that sound! A ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... Kennedy, with well-simulated excitement, was racing me in the car up to the Greenes' again. We literally burst unannounced into the tete-a-tete ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... the 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 Gentlemen's ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... 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 to look long and lovingly ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... assures me that no one but a book reviewer ever reads prefaces, so I seize upon the opportunity to have a tete-a-tete with my critics. Gentlemen, my cards are face up on the table. I have declared to the publisher that nearly every American who knows how to read longs to find his way into print, and should appreciate some of the dearly bought hints herein contained upon practical journalism. And, as I kept ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... seated at his 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, ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... 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
... 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 festal rendezvous with a widow ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... ruddy blaze, and the tea-tray had not yet been brought up. When Lesley saw him she wished that she had sent down word that she was engaged, that she had a headache, or even that she was—conventionally—not at home. Anything rather than a tete-a-tete with Oliver Trent! And yet she would have ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... 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 ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... chairs placed there. Becoming accustomed to the stream of promenaders, I soon observed, seated on the chairs opposite, Caroline and Charles. This was the first occasion on which I had seen them en tete-a-tete since my conversation with him. She soon caught sight of me; averted her eyes; then, apparently abandoning herself to an impulse, she jumped up from her seat and came across to me. We had not spoken to each other since the ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... and is in short 'my literary father'. Pretty nearly the same thing did he for Miss Martineau, as she has said somewhere. God knows I forget what the 'talk', table-talk was about—I think she must have told you the results of the whole day we spent tete-a-tete at Ascot, and that day's, the dinner-day's morning at Elstree and St. Albans. She is to give me advice about my worldly concerns, and ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... 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
... month was not sufficient to maintain a milliner's apprentice. I answered the first assertion by an assurance that I adored her: but I preserved a total silence with regard to the latter; and so I found Trevanion tete-a-tete with her ...
— The Disowned, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... into familiarity, which 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 ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... Lucille shuddered. This tete-a-tete did not amuse her. She rose and looked over one of the bridge tables for a minute. The Prince, who was dealing, looked up ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 ...
— Aaron's Rod • D. H. Lawrence
... 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
... lingered 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 ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... 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, all ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... 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 remonstrate. Then ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... literally making conversation with her. That is, he was engaged in a palpable effort to make conversation—to manufacture out of the thin crisp air of that November morning and the random impressions of their progress up the Avenue, something with a general resemblance to tete-a-tete dialogue as he understood it. ...
— Turn About Eleanor • Ethel M. Kelley
... automobiles. 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
... instance, if Lucia showed ignorance about the Bishop of Mesopotamia—! "Do let's send for Lucia," the Countess said again, coaxingly; and the Count, after a playful show of unwillingness to end their tete-a-tete, at ...
— Captain Dieppe • Anthony Hope
... 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 ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... have no notion what friends Mrs. Hazleby and I have become. We had a tete-a-tete of an hour and a ...
— Abbeychurch - or, Self-Control and Self-Conceit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lands and great cities; I have talked with people I have never beheld. Charlotte Bronte has spent a week with me—in my dreams—and together we have talked of her sad life. Shakespeare and I have discussed his works, seated tete-a-tete over a small table. He pointed out the character of each of his heroines, explaining what I could not understand when awake; and closed the lecture with "You have the tenderest heart I have ever read, or sung of"—which compliment, considering ...
— A Confederate Girl's Diary • Sarah Morgan Dawson
... in this respect. There is, however, of course much individual difference even with reference to this, and some take much more kindly and readily to cleanliness, no doubt to godliness too, than some others. I met Abraham, and thought that, in a quiet tete-a-tete, and with the pathetic consideration of my near departure to assist me, I could get him to confess the truth about the disappearance of the mutton; but he persisted in the legend of its departure through the ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... Mr. Bendigo, bowing and quitting the room, and leaving Mrs. Walker to the pleasure of a tete-a-tete ...
— Men's Wives • William Makepeace Thackeray
... 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 ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... before the next 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 merriment ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... far end of the table, and Howard was dimly and amusedly conscious that this tete-a-tete was of the nature of a romantic adventure to the little lady. He was surprised, when they came to talk, to find how much they appeared to have read of a solid kind. He asked ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... not correct 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 privilege of taking ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... forget the first sight I had of Paris," he said, years later, when speaking of his boyhood to Madame Junot, with whom he was enjoying a tete-a-tete in the palace at Versailles. "I wondered if I hadn't died of sea-sickness on the way over, as I had several times wished I might, and got to heaven. I didn't know how like the other place it was at that time, you see. It was like an enchanted land, a World's Fair forever, and ...
— Mr. Bonaparte of Corsica • John Kendrick Bangs
... to his senses in the gallery the night before. Had she awakened and become conscious of the situation? It was not a pleasant reminiscense for a girl to have, and he felt honestly sorry for her. Then he groaned in spirit at the prospect of an hour's tete-a-tete with Sir Iltyd. He liked Sir Iltyd very much, and thought him possessed of several qualifications valuable in a father-in-law, among them his devotion to his library; but in his present frame of mind he felt that ...
— What Dreams May Come • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... miss the absentees, until the figure of the earl appeared at the reopened door, beckoning, with a face of rapture, to Lady Moseley and Mrs. Wilson. Sir Edward next disappeared, then Jane, then Grace—then Marian; until John began to think a tete-a-tete with Mr. Benfield was to be his ...
— Precaution • James Fenimore Cooper
... resumed 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 ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... ribbon trainers. Thanks to 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 the ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... the tramp, who had been looking out of the window. "The house is watched!" And with this announcement Banborough's tete-a-tete came to an ...
— His Lordship's Leopard - A Truthful Narration of Some Impossible Facts • David Dwight Wells
... conversation began. Mrs. Packard, when free and light-hearted, was a delightful companion and the meal passed off cheerily. When we rose and the mayor left us for some necessary business it was with a look of satisfaction in my direction which was the best possible preparation for my approaching tete-a-tete with his ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green
... The tete-a-tete thus established, Miranda at once began to excuse herself for the means she had taken to attract Odo's attention at the theatre. She had heard from the innkeeper that the Duke of Pianura's cousin, the Cavaliere Valsecca, ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... The tete-a-tete was interrupted by Miss Lynch, who declared that she voiced the wish of all present in requesting that Mr. ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard
... 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, high colouring, and a rather challenging bearing. ...
— The Lost Girl • D. H. Lawrence
... thunder-storms he took refuge in a rather modest and retired restaurant just off Fifth Avenue; and it being the luncheon hour he made a convenience of necessity and looked about for a table, and discovered Rosalie Dysart and Delancy Grandcourt en tete-a-tete over their peach ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... restless in his presence, and was leading her to like better to have Marie or Aunt Hannah in the room when he called. She discovered, too, that she welcomed William, and even Bertram, with peculiar enthusiasm—if they happened to interrupt a tete-a-tete with Cyril. ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... 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
... not so easy to impart a similar confidence into the breast of Colonel Dickinson, with whom Sir Richard dined that night tete-a-tete. Dickinson was inclined to think that Sir Richard ad ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... manuscript, and set a brisk pace, at which she insured the passing of the other guests along the road, making visible her triumph over circumstance and at the same time obviating untimely intrusion of a tete-a-tete conversation. ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... was the matter with the devil, anyway? If he needed exercise why didn't he go and get it? Certainly I didn't want to spend an afternoon antiquarianizing with him. How was I to get him out of the way, so that I could get a tete-a-tete with K.? ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... being nursed by his wife,—a painful 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 ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... and still Theodora's fears kept her from allowing a tete-a-tete when he dismounted and joined ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... 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 ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... They sought to fathom one 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 never ...
— Une Vie, A Piece of String and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... a tender declaration. Which among them has ever danced through a Mazourka, whose cheeks burned not more from the excitement of emotion than from mere physical fatigue? What unexpected and endearing ties have been formed in the long tete-a-tete, in the very midst of crowds, with the sounds of music, which generally recalled the name of some hero or some proud historical remembrance attached to the words, floating around, while thus the associations of love and heroism became forever ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... 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 at what ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... 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
... 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 ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... 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, as though to abstract every possible wrinkle from ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... scene, which Europe related far more amusingly than it can be written, because she told it with much mimicry, Carlos and Lucien were breakfasting tete-a-tete. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... 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
... 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 trysts ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... determined to form her 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 ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... to Harry's face; her tears (which her ladyship had at command) did not seem to create the least sympathy from Mr. Warrington; to her querulous remarks he growled a surly reply; and my lady was obliged to go to bed at length without getting a single tete-a-tete with her cousin,—that obstinate chaplain, as if by order, persisting in staying in the room. Had Harry given Sampson orders to remain? She departed with a sigh. He bowed her to the door with an obstinate politeness, and consigned ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... I know with envy swell, Because they see me used so well: 'How think you of our friend the dean? I wonder what some people mean; My lord and he are grown so great, Always together, tete-a-tete: What, they admire him for his jokes— See but the fortune of some folks!' There flies about a strange report Of some express arrived at court; 110 I'm stopp'd by all the fools I meet, And catechised in every street. ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... impulsiveness which might compromise him—or of a 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 it ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... flourishing city of Ludhiana once stood on its bank. Ludhiana and its dak bungalow, provides refreshments and a three hours' siesta beneath the cooling and seductive punkah, besides an interesting and instructive tete-a-tete with a Eurasian civil officer spending the day here. Among other startling confidences, this olive-tinted gentleman declares that to him the punkah is unbearable, its pendulous, swinging motion invariably making ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens
... his wife were then left tete-a-tete. He had on his face no appearance of disquietude or menace; decidedly he ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... shyly for the luncheon, escaped from the terrors of a tete-a-tete with an unfamiliar grown-up on the plea of having to unpack, and curled up on the couch that Betty had not chosen, to think it over. The day had been full of surprises, but Betty was the culmination. Why had she come to college? ...
— Betty Wales Freshman • Edith K. Dunton
... is my 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
... reasons were obvious enough. Besides the ennui of a tete-a-tete, all flattery on one side and contradiction on the other, he was naturally of the fidgetty restless temperament which hates to be long confined to one place or one occupation, and can never hear of a gathering ...
— Aunt Deborah • Mary Russell Mitford
... evening Prince Victor happened to look up from an interesting tete-a-tete in the brilliant drawing-room with his handsome and liberal-minded hostess opportunely to espy Nogam staring at him from the remote recesses of the ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... 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
... into 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, some interests in it; one must know the nature of the work to be ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... book counter and pull the books about, and make each other innumerable presents of daintily bound volumes, until the clerks grew to know them so well that they never went through the form of asking where the books were to be sent? And those tete-a-tete luncheons at her house when her mother was upstairs with a headache or a dressmaker, and the long rides and walks in the Park in the afternoon, and the rush down town to dress, only to return to dine with them, ten minutes late always, and always with some new excuse, which was allowed ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... knowing that her pride would sufficiently protect her, gave her enough freedom to enjoy the little childish delights which give to first love its charm and its violence. More than once the young man and Mademoiselle de Fontaine walked, tete-a-tete, in the avenues of the garden, where nature was dressed like a woman going to a ball. More than once they had those conversations, aimless and meaningless, in which the emptiest phrases are those which cover the deepest feelings. ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac
... 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, ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... princess, who had remarked the long tete-a-tete of her niece and Saint-Herem with much impatient anxiety, "it is growing late, and we promised Madame de ...
— A Cardinal Sin • Eugene Sue
... 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
... excellent 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 ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... 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
... longer the young ladies and their favored attendants strolled about the room in quiet tete-a-tete, and then the gentlemen bowed ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... 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 ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... will be the 'wild one'?" Lilda asked her husband one night, as they sat opposite each other in the great, high-ceilinged dining-room. They were, for a marvel, alone, and unlike the ordinary quiet jog-trot couple who welcome any casual stranger to break the monotony of five years of table tete-a-tete, they delighted in this happy chance that recalled their honeymoon meals together. They were so much sought after, and Lestrange's position required so much and such varied entertaining, that they could not remember when, before, ...
— The Strange Cases of Dr. Stanchon • Josephine Daskam Bacon
... 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 ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham
... me, where I sat in a quiet nook not far from my godmother and M. de Bassompierre, who, as usual, were engaged in what Mr. Home called "a two-handed crack:" what the Count would have interpreted as a tete-a-tete. Graham smiled recognition, crossed the room, asked me how I was, told me I looked pale. I also had my own smile at my own thought: it was now about three months since Dr. John had spoken to me-a lapse of which he was not even conscious. ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... 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 insults ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... mornin' it turns out that I can guess like a rabbit can run. The new entry on the payroll borrehs a match from me, and durin' the tete-a-tete that folleyed, I find out that his name is John R. Adams and, as far as the world in general and America in particular is concerned, it could of been George Q. Mud. Durin' the lifetime of twenty-nine years he's been on earth, he's tried his hand at everything from bankin' to bartenderin', ...
— Kid Scanlan • H. C. Witwer
... went. Mr. Luke Smith was just at dinner, but the vicar was, nevertheless, shown into the bachelor's little dining-room. But what was his disgust and disappointment at finding his late pupil tete-a-tete over a comfortable fish-dinner, opposite a burly, vulgar, cunning-eyed man, with a narrow rim of muslin turned down over his stiff cravat, of whose profession ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... now. She trembled, and, wishing to avoid this tete-a-tete, glided softly to the door; but Ulrich hastened after ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... small table placed beside his sofa; and as the starch man of forms and method entered the room at one door, a rustling silk, that vanished through the aperture of another, seemed to betray tokens of a tete-a-tete, probably more agreeable to Lilburne than the one with which only ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... by Professor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was not restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for his tete-a-tete. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... he had just volunteered to eat.—"No? Then I'm off. Good-night, Frank! Mind you go to that tutor to-morrow,"—he said, handing me the address he had hastily scribbled down; and, he went out on some errand of mercy, leaving Miss Pimpernell and myself to resume our tete-a-tete conversation, which he ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... said 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 ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... 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 ...
— Master Tales of Mystery, Volume 3 • Collected and Arranged by Francis J. Reynolds
... 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 out ...
— Letters From High Latitudes • The Marquess of Dufferin (Lord Dufferin)
... withdrawing from the conversation and 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 frown in ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... was bad 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 Lucy ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... presentations. Captain Laurence, having 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 ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... Henry in the latter's curricle. But at the first stage the general proposed that Catherine should take his place in the curricle that she might "see as much of the country as possible;" and, for the rest of the journey she was tete-a-tete with Henry, who amused himself by rallying her upon the sliding panels, ghastly tapestry, funereal beds, vaulted chambers, and kindred uncanny apparatus which, judging from her favourite kind of fiction, she must be expecting to find ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... next 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
... Heaven's sake, what do you imagine I can find to say once a day that is worth saying, shut up thus, either tinkling on the harp or holding a tete-a-tete conversation? You must, indeed, have a high opinion of my genius and ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... 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 by ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Lady Fermor, right out before every one, that she did not care a bit for music, but was extremely fond of musicians, it was generally felt that cheiromancy was a most dangerous science, and one that ought not to be encouraged, except in a tete-a-tete. ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... short 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 his impatient father, hastily informed in angry terms ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... and 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, a feat of which he was at that time ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Lyndalberg to Schloss Breitstein by the shortest way—across the lake in a smart little motor-boat—promising to be back in time for dinner and a concert, the Baroness spent all her energy in getting up an impromptu riding-party, which would give Leopold the chance of another tete-a-tete ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson |
