"Nonchalant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... luggage confirmed the first favourable impression. It included a gun case, a bag of golf clubs, and one or two handsome leather articles. Evidently he meant to make more than a passing visit, and as he strolled down the platform, his leisurely nonchalant air and something even in the way in which he smoked his cigarette in its amber holder, suggested a gentleman who, having arrived here, was in no hurry to move on. On a luggage label the approving boots noted the name of ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... in the odd-looking, rough, shapeless coat, yet with a certain expensive, fashionable air about the rest of his dress, who stood leaning against the chimney-piece in a nonchalant attitude, was her eldest cousin, Elliot Lyddell. The other, a great contrast in appearance, small, slender, and pale, with near-sighted spectacles over his weak, light grey eyes, dressed with scrupulous precision and quietness, who had retreated ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... two pigeons over a dovecot; Tozer, with that wicked whisking little Jones, spins along as merrily as a May-day sweep; Miss Joy is the partner of the happy Fred Sparks; and even Miss Ranville is pleased, for the faultless Captain Grig is toe and heel with her. Beaumoris, with rather a nonchalant air, takes a turn with Miss Trotter, at which Lord Methuseleh's wrinkled chops quiver uneasily. See! how the big Baron de Bobwitz spins lightly, and gravely, and gracefully round; and lo! the Frenchman staggering under the weight ...
— The Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... noticed that Mr. Prime seemed to play the dandy more consummately than usual, as though he were reflecting that come what might he would go down as he had declared, with a smile on his face and a flawless coat on his back. I had never known him to be more amusing and nonchalant than in the half hour which followed his previous outburst. When we reached a flower-stand at the corner of the streets where our ways divided, he asked me to wait a minute, and, selecting a boutoniere and a beautiful white rose, he presented ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... motionless, even to her fingers and eyelids. The Iron Duke standing at her left, bent, and trembled slightly—supporting with evident difficulty the ponderous sword of State. Prince Albert, sitting tall and soldier- like, in his handsome Field-Marshal's uniform, looked nonchalant and serene, but with a certain far-away expression in his eyes. The Earl of Derby held the crown on its gorgeous-cushion gracefully, like an accomplished waiter presenting a tray of ices. On a like occasion, some time ago, I hear the Duke of Argyle had the ill-luck to drop this ...
— Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood • Grace Greenwood
... affected, he could not tell why. There was something in the dawn's delicate loveliness that seemed to him inexpressibly pathetic, and he thought of all the days that break in beauty, and that set in storm. These rustics, too, with their rough, good-humoured voices, and their nonchalant ways, what a strange London they saw! A London free from the sin of night and the smoke of day, a pallid, ghost-like city, a desolate town of tombs! He wondered what they thought of it, and whether they knew anything of its splendour and its shame, of its fierce, fiery- coloured joys, and its ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... With a nonchalant air which excited Mr. Oppner's admiration, Alden walked to a lamp some little distance away, tore open the yellow ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... Burleigh Wentworth for forgery was one of the sensations of the season. A fashionable crowd went day after day to the stifling Court to watch its progress. The man himself, nonchalant, debonair, bore himself with the instinctive courage of his race, though whether his bearing would have been as confident had Percival Field not been at his back was a question asked by a good many. He was one of the best-known figures in society, a general favourite in ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... arming himself with his insolence against the other's disdain. In a moment he had mastered the excitement that brought him so stormily into the room. He was once more the Lucas who had entered that other night, nonchalant, mocking. ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... the spruce equipments and exact drill of the youths, as they stepped out full of enthusiasm to take their first actual look upon the horrid visage of war, under their renowned professor, formed a strong contrast with the war-worn and nonchalant veterans who composed the army."* (* ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... walks can be so called. The city in its development has laid out alleys and boulevards instead of merely making ways, with the result that in spite of brilliant sky and burning sun, coolness and shadow are ever to be had. The Cannebire, with its blue sky, glowing foliage and gay, nonchalant, heterogeneous crowds, reminds me of the Rambla of Barcelona. Indeed, the two cities have many points of resemblance. Marseilles is greatly changed from the Marseilles I visited twenty-five years ago, to say nothing of Arthur Young's description of 1789. The only ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... and his heart fluttered. "I must be cautious," he told himself. "In more ways than one, this is a crucial moment." At the same time, as a very part of his caution, he must appear entirely nonchalant and candid. ...
— The Cardinal's Snuff-Box • Henry Harland
... gripped her hand so hard and said that, really the same nonchalant young man who had leaned out of the carriage window, gurgling with laughter? And what had made the difference? She buried her face in the heliotrope, whose perfume seemed the memory of his visit; then, going to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Standish affectionately linked arms with her relation and, with the nonchalant rudeness that was in those days almost a badge of caste, dragged her off to a cool and dusky corner of the panelled reception-hall to acquaint her with the adulterated facts responsible for the phenomenon of ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... company, I must say!" she said in her old nonchalant tone. "So I'll leave you to yourself. Good-night, fair Lady Elaine, ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... determination to stand by the Queen's dominions on the other side of the Atlantic. Language so just and so clear would lead to the inevitable result of renewed negociation. But who should negociate? The incapable, nonchalant people who have so signally perilled the interests of Great Britain,—or new and capable men? Or should the whole state of our relations with the United States be ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... attracted; but she was interested. She saw beyond the ill-fitting frock-coat, and the absurd manner, thoroughly ill at ease, trying to assume easy, nonchalant man-of- the-world airs. "I'd never have thought of judging you except on your own ground," said she, "if ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... you like about Nolla's, but leave mine where the man can pick them up readily, to-morrow, when I leave," returned Barbara, in a nonchalant manner. ...
— Polly of Pebbly Pit • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... another. Miss Wildmere was delighted. The game was in her own hands. She could play these two men off against each other, and take her choice. Mr. Arnault was made to feel that he was not de trop, and, as usual, he was nonchalant, serene, and evidently meant to stay. Therefore Graydon took his leave, and was permitted to carry away the impression that ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... a change. When in the presence of Barbara he had been confident, nonchalant. When he dismounted from his horse and walked toward Harlan there was about him an atmosphere that suggested carefulness. Before Haydon had taken half a dozen steps Harlan was aware that the man knew him—knew of his reputation—and ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... nonchalant company of the smarter young bachelors up-stairs he smoked a cigarette. But he sneaked away. He paused at the bend in the stairs. Below him was Gertie, silver-gowned, wonderful. He wanted to go down to her. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... Josh, letting his head go down between his knees, and so disgusting the stranger that he turned sharply upon his heel and strutted off, swinging a black cane with a silver top and silk tassels to and fro, and then stopping in a very nonchalant manner to take out a silver hunting watch and look at the time, at the same moment taking care that Will should have a good view of the watch, and feel envious if ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... tell our fortunes, eh?" The three girls gather about the table; the other two shuffle and cut. The cards turn out well for them. Carmen watches them. After a moment she reaches for the pack. She is very nonchalant about it, and glances at Jose as she shuffles the cards. Then she sits half upon the table and cuts. A glance! a moment of sudden fear! she has cut death for herself! The blow has come to her in her most reckless moment. After an instant's pause she sings with a simple fatalism ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... early arrival by announcing in a nonchalant manner that after he had given his Malemutes a day's rest he was going on to Fort Churchill, to bring back a wife. He hinted, with a punctuating crack of his whip, that he would make a second visit, and a more interesting one, at just about the time when ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... masculine beauty; the habitual expression of the eyes kindly and sympathetic, but as he grew heated in talk, they sparkled like fire; the curves of the mouth bespoke an interesting mixture of finesse, grace, and geniality. His bearing was nonchalant enough, but there was naturally in the carriage of his head, especially when he talked with action, much dignity, energy, and nobleness. It seemed as if enthusiasm were the natural condition for his voice, for his spirit, for every feature. ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... of course, my dear Sir Hugh," replied the other, with a nonchalant air. "But if I were you I would not be in too great a hurry to make such a declaration. You may require a friend in the near ...
— The Doctor of Pimlico - Being the Disclosure of a Great Crime • William Le Queux
... nonchalant fashion again; her chin between her two hands now, and her head making little appreciative nods. "That's like condensed milk; a great deal in a little of it. I'll put the fig-leaves away now, and ...
— A Summer in Leslie Goldthwaite's Life. • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... the crowd and took up a nonchalant attitude in the bows, smoking cigarettes and looking at ...
— Mystery at Geneva - An Improbable Tale of Singular Happenings • Rose Macaulay
... prose about the past, with what complacent exultation will he speak of the beautiful Ada Rehan, so bewitching as Peggy in The Country Girl, so radiant, vehement, and stormily passionate as Katherine; of manly John Drew, with his nonchalant ease, incisive tone, and crisp and graceful method; of noble Charles Fisher, and sprightly and sparkling James Lewis, and genial, piquant, quaint Mrs. Gilbert! I mark the gentle triumph in that aged reminiscent ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... waged a mimic warfare across them, Made him their battle-ground, and won and lost kingdoms upon him. Airily to and fro, and out of one room to another Passed his cousin, and busied herself with things of the household, Nonchalant, debonair, blithe, with bewitching housewifely importance, Laying the cloth for the supper, and bringing the meal from the kitchen; Fairer than ever she seemed, and more than ever she mocked him, Coming behind his chair, and clasping her fingers ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... request; an altogether unwise emotion. Better that he had remained at the window, and drawled out a nonchalant denial. But he was apt to be as earnestly genuine on the surface as he was in reality. It set Lady Hartledon wondering; and she resolved ...
— Elster's Folly • Mrs. Henry Wood
... trumps with a woman, for they indicate inexperience and uncertainty. The man who proposes in a finished and nonchalant manner, as if he had done it frequently and were sure of the result, is now and then astonished at a refusal. It is also a risk to offer a ring immediately after acceptance. The suspicion is that the ring has been worn before, or else the ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... though one man held all the cards. Against Howie the odds were heavier than ever, but Howie was eliminated from present calculations. And as Stingaree made them with the upturned face of seeming insensibility, he heard a nonchalant step come and go, but knew an eye was on him all the time, and never opened his own till the striking of a match was followed by ...
— Stingaree • E. W. (Ernest William) Hornung
... have been madness to attempt an escape with his eyes upon me; so, assuming as nonchalant a look as my present feelings would allow, I answered his inquiring glance with ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various
... no sign of having heard her. Throwing away the cigar he was smoking he asked in the most nonchalant manner: ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... Vatican excited our wonder and admiration. They are most beautifully worked pictures, and cover the walls over an immense area. Unfortunately, we had a nonchalant guide on this day, who was only enthusiastic over his cigarettes, and whose purely mechanical utterances exasperated one in the same degree as do the solemn old Beefeaters in our own Tower, or the garrulous, conceited guide at Notre Dame, Paris. A ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... but she hastily assumed a nonchalant air. "They have got me," she laughed, "and I'm already off—or, at least, I shall be as soon as they ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... manners and taste would have availed him little with his new associates had he been a whit less manly. But as he shirked no part of the universal hardship, they left him his reticence. He even came to enjoy a sort of remote popularity as one who was conversant with the best—a nonchalant social connoisseur—yet who realized the stern primitive ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... he was actually in the room, his cold appraising eyes upon her, that the poor woman realized that her position towards him had changed. She could not summon up the nonchalant distant civility which, according to her ideas, was sufficient for her country neighbors in general, and ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... Brainard, I say, and yet in no sense the man I had known,—not a hint in this pale creature, whose breath struggled through chattering teeth, and whose hands worked in uncontrollable spasms, of the nonchalant elegant I had known. Not a glimpse to be seen in those angry and determined eyes of the gayly selfish spirit ...
— A Mountain Woman and Others • (AKA Elia Wilkinson) Elia W. Peattie
... kiss her good-night. There had been a strange touch of excitement, of emotion, in his manner to-night. It was natural that she herself should be moved by Nancy Dampier's distress. But Gerald? Gerald, who was generally speaking rather nonchalant, and very, very critical ...
— The End of Her Honeymoon • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... company with Don Rafael and his companions. Vessel after vessel passed the reef, but none took notice of our signal. At last, on the tenth day of our imprisonment, a couple of small schooners fanned their way in a nonchalant manner towards our island, and knowing that we were quite at their mercy, refused our rescue unless we assented to the most extravagant terms of compensation. After a good deal of chaffering, it was agreed that the ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... the railway, and was advancing up the Roman road along by the straw sacks. His impulse was to retreat, but someone waved to him. It was Agnes. She waved continually, as much as to say, "Wait for us." Mrs. Failing herself raised the whip in a nonchalant way. Stephen Wonham was following on foot, some way behind. He put the Shelley back into his pocket and waited for them. When the carriage stopped by some hurdles he went down from the embankment and helped them to ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... regeneration, at present almost totally beyond our control. Some say that it is a matter of the wear and tear of our blood vessels, those rubber-like tubes which transport food and drainage with nonchalant equanimity to all cells as long as they last. In the classic phrase: a man is as old as his arteries, ergo his ductless glands will be as old as their arteries. And the age of arteries is simply a matter of wear and tear, the resultant of the function which is universal among molecules. Arteriosclerosis, ...
— The Glands Regulating Personality • Louis Berman, M.D.
... therefore,' he said, endeavoring to assume a nonchalant air of indifference. 'Would you still win it back, Sergius? And the sesteria also? Well, there is that vineyard of yours on the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... refused to drink a glass of beer with me, and always knew the way to a traktir. To the public functionaries with whom we came in contact during the course of our rambles his air was grand and imposing; and on the subject of money he was sublimely nonchalant, caring no more for rubles than I did for kopeks. Once or twice he hinted to me that he was of noble blood, but laid no particular stress upon that, since it was his misfortune at present to be in rather reduced circumstances. Some time or other he would go to Italy and resume his proper ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne
... hair was dark auburn in colour, short and wavy, with a sort of golden tinge in it; his forehead was broad and open, and below it were two uncommonly waggish blue eyes. His habitual expression was a mixture of nonchalant good humour and gay insouciance, but the slightly aquiline, prominent nose and the set of the square aggressive jaw belied in a measure the humourous ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... up to-day in her hateful big car. She did not find me a very agreeable hostess, I'm afraid, but curled up like a nonchalant green snake in one of my armchairs and started to smoke and talk. She asked where Duncan was and I had to explain that he'd been called out to the mines on imperative business. And that started her going on the mines. Duncan, she said, should clean up half a million ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... present, that Kettle was jostling heavily upon court etiquette, and at first the Lady Emir was very clearly inclined to resent it, and had sharp orders for repression ready upon her lips. But she changed her mind, perhaps through some memory that by blood she was related to this nonchalant race; and presently cushions were brought, on which Captain Kettle bestowed himself tailor-fashion (with his back cautiously up against a wall), and then a negro slave knelt before him and offered sweet sticky sherbet, which he ...
— A Master of Fortune • Cutcliffe Hyne
... harangue was finished, which I uttered in an easy and nonchalant tone of voice, as if reciting something that everybody knew, his lordship stood on his feet again, staring at me like a man thunderstruck. This gave me the opportunity of exercising that politeness which his abrupt entrance and demeanour ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... stretched prone upon the ground, blinking sleepily up at the sun and the cobalt sky, feeling my very hair grow, and health returning in warm, electric waves. I even dared to cross one leg over the other and to swing the pendant member with nonchalant air, first taking a cautious survey of the neighboring back windows to see if any one peeked. Doubtless they did, behind those ruffled curtains, but ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... His manner was nonchalant to the last degree. Tommy Beresford was one of those young Englishmen not distinguished by any special intellectual ability, but who are emphatically at their best in what is known as a "tight place." Their natural diffidence and caution fall from them like a glove. ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... to silence the bandits, to check movement, to clamp the situation. Kells was white and radiant; he seemed careless and nonchalant. ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... again. "Is Mr. Bickett in this country? " she asked, her voice carefully nonchalant. "I have not heard anything about him for two ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... had. I'm sure the girls of that time were nicer than they are nowadays,' he replied, calmly relapsing into his nonchalant attitude. ...
— Sarah's School Friend • May Baldwin
... at us after we had passed through Chantilly, and on the way to Amiens we sped by forty or fifty ambulances. It was at the Cafe Gobert, in Amiens, that we got out of the automobile and had luncheon. That town was thronged with nonchalant women and blue-clad poilus. Following our refreshment, we continued our journey. We ran into soldiers and guns, aeroplanes, and more guns of all calibres; there must have been two miles of them in one batch that ...
— Some Naval Yarns • Mordaunt Hall
... was something in the outlaw's manner, in the cold, measured tone of his voice, in his nonchalant disregard of the pistol in Lawler's hand that brought a swift suspicion into Lawler's mind. It was a presentiment that the outlaw was not alone in the cabin; that he had carefully laid his plans, and that they did not include ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of superiority—a mere bag of vanity, whose emptiness is partly hidden by gorgeous raiment, gold embroidery, rings, snuff-box, muff and what-not. With what genteel condescension does he greet Sir Charles; how gracefully nonchalant is he to my Lord Morelove. "My dear agreeable! Que je t'embrasse! Pardi! Il y a cent ans que je ne t'ai veu. My lord, I am your lordship's ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... Mrs. Brown-Potter, as acting is no longer considered absolutely essential for success on the English stage, there is really no reason why the pretty bright-eyed lady who charmed us all last June by her merry laugh and her nonchalant ways, should not—to borrow an expression from her native language—make a big boom and paint the town red. We sincerely hope she will; for, on the whole, the American invasion has done English society a great deal of good. American women are bright, clever, and wonderfully ...
— Miscellanies • Oscar Wilde
... easy, leisurely manner of Scott's writing, its digressiveness, its nonchalant carelessness, its indifference to artistic quality, has in some sort of way numbed and atrophied the interest in his work of those who have been caught up and waylaid by the modern spirit. And yet Scott's novels have ample and admirable excellencies. ...
— One Hundred Best Books • John Cowper Powys
... went past the kitchen-window in nonchalant style, and was not seen again at Yew Nook for some weeks. How did he pass the time? For the first day or two, he was unusually cross with all things and people that came athwart him. Then wheat-harvest began, and he was busy, and exultant ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... his recent examination by General Serano, and wished he had not assumed quite so nonchalant an air, although he felt that he could not have answered the questions which would perhaps involve the safety of Captain Dynamite. They were unquestionably in a disagreeable situation. He realized that if he were to tell the entire truth they would be immediately ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... at Rufus. It was abundantly evident that he had not realised how near to open violence the young fisherman had been. His nonchalant explanation was plainly all-sufficing in his own opinion, and during the very marked silence that followed he displayed no faintest hint of anxiety or even interest as to the ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell
... with all his country beaming in his face, tall in stature, light in complexion, with gray eyes, and open, frank expression. He had a thin mustache, flaxen side whiskers, and no beard. He stood in an easy, nonchalant attitude, with an eye-glass stuck in one eye, and a light cane in his hand, which he switched carelessly ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... face level with his, revealing it bravely, perhaps defiantly. Its tense expression, with a few misery-laden lines, answered back to the inquiry of the nonchalant outsiders: 'Yes, I am his wife, his wife, the wife of the object over there, brought here to the hospital, shot in a saloon brawl.' And the surgeon's face, alive with a new preoccupation, seemed to reply: 'Yes, I know! You need not pain yourself ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... just as of old; it seemed to Reimers as if he had not been away for a day. He looked around him: all were as before, the elder men, with thick moustaches and hair growing thin in places, with the cares of a future command already on the brow; those of his own age, easy-going and assuming nonchalant airs; and the youngest of all very spick and span and extremely correct. Just as of old the three brothers-in-law stood close together (two of them had in the meantime become fathers, and the wife of Keyl II., nee Moeller, was in an interesting condition), and chatted about their ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... you have done for me, dear girl," he said in a low tone as he pressed her hand. The next moment, with a nonchalant "So-long," the parting of the plains, he had dug the spurs into ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... exciting things, New York things, began to happen at once. To her, meditating, there entered Pugsy Maloney, the guardian of the gate of this shrine of Peace, a nonchalant youth of about fifteen, with a freckled, mask-like face, the expression of which never varied, bearing in his arms a cat. The cat was struggling violently, but he appeared quite unconscious of it. Its existence did not seem to occur ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... was, but made no observation beyond affirming that they were his, and making some remarks relative to his being brought there on so paltry an accusation. During this he was smoking a cigar, and behaving himself in a careless nonchalant manner. Meanwhile, the detectives were making use of their eyes, and seeing if the descriptions they possessed corresponded with the figures before them. The watch-house keeper finding that Mr. Brice had no charge to prefer ...
— A Source Book Of Australian History • Compiled by Gwendolen H. Swinburne
... later) had any live original. She seems a little more human in some ways than most of those cloud-Junos of the poets, the heroines of sonnet-sequence and song-string. She herself has a distinct touch of philosophy, anticipating with nonchalant resignation the year's severance, and with equally ...
— Matthew Arnold • George Saintsbury
... rapped the man across the face with his light rattan cane. Venting a howl of rage, the Eureka partisan leaped forward. Calhoun Bennett, quick as a flash, drew a small derringer and fired; and the man went down in a heap. Superbly nonchalant, Bennett, without a glance at his victim, turned away, the ring of spectators parting to let him through. He saw Keith, and at once joined him, drawing the young man's arm through his own. Keith, looking back, saw the man already sitting up, feeling ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... acknowledged the check as he would any ordinary payment, and then he made us observe that there was still a large sum due him out of the moneys withheld. At this point I proposed to Clemens that we should let the nonchalant victim collect the remnant himself. Clouds of sorrow had gathered about the bowed head of the delinquent since we began on him, and my fickle sympathies were turning his way from the victim who was really to blame for leaving his affairs so unguardedly to him in the first place. Clemens made ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the matter for all time. Doubtless you were right when you said it was nonsense; you ought to know. Changing the subject, I think I'll like Brussels if I stay here long enough." He was again nonchalant, indifferent. Under her mask of unconcern she felt a trifle piqued that he did not persist in his endeavor to learn the contents of ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... this line. No wonder Mrs. Pember looked back at the ten years of her married life with a shudder. With the rigid training of her somewhat dogmatic communion still potent, she listened in a horrified expectancy, rather actual than figurative, for the heavens to strike or the earth to swallow up her nonchalant husband. Nor was this all. The weakness for grog, unfortunately supposed to be inherent in a nautical existence, was carried by Captain Pember to an extent inconsiderate even in the eyes of a seafaring public; and when, under its genial influence, ...
— A Christmas Accident and Other Stories • Annie Eliot Trumbull
... hoboes carried the word that Cheyenne was "horstile." Fortunately, I never encountered Jeff Carr. I passed through Cheyenne in a blizzard. There were eighty-four hoboes with me at the time. The strength of numbers made us pretty nonchalant on most things, but not on Jeff Carr. The connotation of "Jeff Carr" stunned our imagination, numbed our virility, and the whole gang was ...
— The Road • Jack London
... suddenly relaxed; he leaned against a chair with a return of his habitual nonchalant air, ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... She habitually 'bums' cigarettes and I've known her to go through a fellow's war-bag, in his absence, for tobacco. When she's hungry, which I should judge was all the time, she drops in casually upon a patient and humorously raids the pantry—all with that air of nonchalant good fellowship which shields her from much criticism, since what in reality is miserliness and gluttony passes very well ...
— The Lady Doc • Caroline Lockhart
... look, half strode, half sidled towards Mrs. Hilson, and putting his elbow in her face by way of an invitation, led her to the quadrille. The contrast between these two couples, placed opposite to each other, was striking, and yet common enough in a mixed ballroom. Captain Kockney was desperately nonchalant, his partner full of airs and graces; their conversation was silly, ignorant, and conceited, beyond the reach of imagination—such things must be heard to be believed. Young Van Horne was clever, and appeared to less advantage in dancing than in most things. ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... visitor. His looks, his manner, his accent betray him as one of the English-speaking pest, and the crowd, with its mind so full of English hatred, does not readily distinguish the American. So drop into a word of English in a cafe: your neighbor glowers and draws away. You face it out with a nonchalant air, but gradually the tension grows, especially when, as happened to-day at the prisoners' camp at Zossen, twenty miles south of Berlin, a great burly Prussian puts a menacing eye on you and says, without introduction: 'It is very ...
— The Log of a Noncombatant • Horace Green
... witness, keeping his eyes fixed on Joe and the gun and trying his best to maintain a nonchalant manner. "I'd call it ...
— The Trail of the White Mule • B. M. Bower
... all musical, and wonderfully imitative," answered he. "They can catch almost anything they hear." He spoke in a nonchalant tone, but she felt his arm tremble as she leaned upon it. He had never before made such an effort ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... mortify him, and admiring everything he did with all her soul. He made a halt as they entered the glittering dining-room, and stood frowning till the head-waiter ran respectfully up to them, and ushered them with sweeping bows to a table, which they had to themselves. Bartley ordered their dinner with nonchalant ease, beginning with soup and going to black coffee with dazzling intelligence. While their waiter was gone with their order, he beckoned with one finger to another, and sent him out for a paper, which he unfolded and spread on the table, taking a ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... from the door he slowed up, put on a nonchalant air, and strolling in, looked about for Castile soap. There it was, the same kind, displayed in a box and looking ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... should—on the whole. Pulse is poor. That's the worst sign." She picked up the hand lying outside the coverlet and put her finger-tips to the wrist, doing it with the easy nonchalant carelessness with which she might have seized an inanimate object, yet knowing exactly what she was about. "H'm! Fifty-six! That's pretty low. If we could get it above sixty—but still!" Dropping the hand with the same indifference, yet continuing to know what she ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... taken the sudden revelation of his poverty with great coolness, and Jack admired the grim resolution with which he had cut down expenses while relaxing in no whit his hold on the nonchalant beauty. Poverty would, to a certain extent, bar him out from Rose's sumptuous world, and Rose did not seem to take him very seriously as a suitor; but it was evident that Eddy did not intend to remain poor any longer than he could possibly help it and evident, too, that his ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... occupants of the boat with an air of mild curiosity. The stranger was the first to see him, and with an expression of evident disgust gave Merrick warning of his approach. If the detective felt any annoyance he did not betray it as he turned and nodded to Scott in the most nonchalant manner possible, as though dragging the ...
— That Mainwaring Affair • Maynard Barbour
... watching her pretty shoulders, her easy, curiously nonchalant risings and sittings, and her perfunctory genuflexions, and thought what a help such an Anglican would have been to him in happier circumstances. It was not so much his anxiety to get on with his work that made him go up to it immediately the worshipers began to take ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... "That's just it. The mediums are so nonchalant while causing these marvels that they fail to convince. Why, when I was holding a slate in order that they might write upon it, I minded the scratching no more than a clock a-ticking, they had made me that careless of their hocus-pocus. ...
— The Tyranny of the Dark • Hamlin Garland
... about the pair. Neither heard nor indeed heeded it. The old man was easy, almost nonchalant; the ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... Anthony and Roger Barnes came down. The former was pale, but as quietly composed as ever; the latter nonchalant, yet wearing that gleam of satisfaction in his eye which is ever the badge ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... and studying; nevertheless, he welcomed his visitor. The young man came in like an inhabitant of another world, as he was; in spotlessly neat attire, leisurely manner, and with his blue eyes sleepily nonchalant at the sight of all the stir of all the world. But they ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... thousands of men and women who must work for a living where some nonchalant architect has needlessly made their ...
— The Crow's Nest • Clarence Day, Jr.
... all the rest, with the nonchalant survey of virgin dandyism, Francis Hazeldean looked over one of the high starched neckcloths which were then the fashion,—a handsome lad, fresh from Eton for the summer holidays, but at that ambiguous age when one disdains the ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and then Captain Scott gave us an hour or two to ourselves, for it was the day of farewell letters, everybody sitting round the ward-room table sucking pens or pencils, looking very wooden-faced and nonchalant despite the fact that we were most certainly writing to our nearest and dearest, sending through our letters an unwritten prayer that we should be spared after steadfastly performing our alloted tasks with credit to our flag and with credit to those ...
— South with Scott • Edward R. G. R. Evans
... clutch of a broad disgust, I could not tell. Perhaps it was both. Very suddenly he wheeled upon Kennedy. His voice became low and vibrant with feeling. Here was none of the steeled self-control of Manton, the deceptive outer mask which Werner used to cover his thoughts, the nonchalant, cold frankness of Gordon. ...
— The Film Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve
... glad to see him go from the house. Soon he returned to demand Wilfrid's address. Arabella wrote it out for him with rebuking composure. Then he insisted upon having Captain Gambier's, whom he described as "ce nonchalant dandy." ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... with the ticket agent, and assuming as nonchalant an air as was possible in his present disturbed state, he strolled into the office. After a ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask
... I slept very badly. To begin with, Maurice Anscombe, generally the most cheerful and nonchalant of mortals with a jest for every woe, was in a most depressed condition, and informed me of it several times, while I was getting ready to turn in. He said he thought the place hateful and felt as if ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... nonchalant, armored in a half smile, Ruth stood before her inquisitors. Bob never would have recognized this composed and unmoved girl as the anxious Ruth who had tried so hard ...
— The Fifth Wheel - A Novel • Olive Higgins Prouty
... When he woke he did not utter a sound, did not stir, and did not even open his eyes. He would have been glad not to wake, for, as was evident, he was not greatly in love with life. Nothing interested him, he showed an apathetic and nonchalant attitude to everything, he disdained everything and, even while eating his delicious dinner, ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... moment the click of the balls on the other tallies was the only sound. Craig broke the tableau by reaching for his glass of whisky, which he emptied. He tried to assume a nonchalant air, but his hand shook as he replaced the glass on the tabouret. It rolled off to the ...
— Parrot & Co. • Harold MacGrath
... quietly moving round each other. The graceful activity of the amateur was somewhat characteristic of his school, while the ex-professional contented himself with almost imperceptible movements of his feet, watching with a nonchalant yet wary caution for the coming attack. With the suddenness of a flash the Lieutenant led with his left and was back out of harm's ...
— The Long Trick • Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... burn; But never yet had I transgressed God's law, By looking on the man I had resigned, With any hidden feeling in my mind, Which she, his wife, my friend, might not have known He was but little altered. From his face The nonchalant and almost haughty grace, The lurking laughter waiting in his eyes, The years had stolen, leaving in their place A settled sadness, which was not despair, Nor was it gloom, nor weariness, nor care, But something like the vapour o'er ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... stormed stronger works than that,—without faltering for artillery, musketry, or bayonet. But here they were literally unable to reach the works; the fatal rifle-bullet drew a line at which bravery and cowardice, nonchalant veterans and trembling boys, were ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 4, No. 24, Oct. 1859 • Various
... playing his nonchalant music. Therese, who for eight days had been running to churches and museums in the company of Madame Marmet, was thinking of the annoyance which her companion caused her by discovering in the faces of the ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France |
