"Nonchalant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... heard about the man?" said Eastman, in a nonchalant voice. He inhaled the smoke from his cigar with an ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... prolong the agony. She cast a look at her daughter, full of yearning mother love and sympathy; but Dreda was smiling still, her grey eyes wide open, her very gums showing in the unnatural stretching of her lips. She submitted to be kissed, but offered no caress in return, and turned with a nonchalant air to examine the photographs on the mantelshelf, while Miss Bretherton escorted her mother ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... important for him to be early in Apia, where he combines with his diplomatic functions the management of a thriving business as commission agent and auctioneer. I do say of all of them that they took a very nonchalant view ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... deck of the Dunottar Castle, nor yet the friend of his early days in Cape Town, nor yet again the blithe companion of his last tedious hours of convalescence. This girl was altogether admirable; but a bit awe-inspiring withal. He watched the nonchalant ease with which she provided a white-haired veteran of many wars and many orders with a cup of steaming tea, and then sat and chatted with him while he drank it. He felt himself a bashful boy, as he watched her, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... and directed Wade to collect the fragments of glass. While the man was doing so silence again reigned, and the little room seemed full of uneasiness. Only Valentine either was or affected to be nonchalant. As soon as Wade had gone ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... flagship, was decorated from one end to the other with its faded pennants, but in the stern, proudly proclaiming its present nationality, flew the Stars and Stripes. Under the flag at the bow stood a sturdy, nonchalant figure, arms folded, head erect. Condescendingly Piang swept the crowd of wondering natives with his haughty eye. He paid no more attention to Sicto than to the others. In his supreme self-confidence Piang scorned to report Sicto to the authorities. ...
— The Adventures of Piang the Moro Jungle Boy - A Book for Young and Old • Florence Partello Stuart
... 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 ...
— A Romantic Young Lady • Robert Grant
... raged and stormed, called him "demented Bismarck," "Napoleon worshiper," "hollow braggart," "a country gentleman of moderate political training, inconsistent, nonchalant, insolent to a degree;—pray when did Bismarck ever ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... walking with an easy nonchalant air ahead of the party, on a very narrow footpath, suddenly stopped to listen with a look of anxiety. A moment later and he entered the bush that fringed the ...
— The Fugitives - The Tyrant Queen of Madagascar • R.M. Ballantyne
... away. Ida Mayhew sat near in an open window of the parlor, ostensibly reading a novel, but in reality observant of all that occurred. Both she and Van Berg had been amused by the fact that Stanton, usually so languid and nonchalant, had been for once thoroughly aroused. Between anger at his coachmen, alarm for the child, and interest in its preserver, he was quite shaken out of his wonted equanimity, which was composed equally of indolent good-nature, self-complacency, and a disposition ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe
... grim spectre still linking arms with him he hurried on, making short-cuts across the streets, until he arrived at Kling's corner. At this point he paused. His terror must not betray him. Shaking himself free of the spectre, he assumed his one-time nonchalant air, entered the store and walked down the middle aisle, between the lines of sideboards, bureaus and high desks drawn up in dress parade. Over the barricade of the small office he caught the shine ...
— Felix O'Day • F. Hopkinson Smith
... With a nonchalant air which excited Mr. Oppner's admiration, Alden walked to a lamp some little distance away, tore open the yellow envelope, ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... 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 sporting circles, and ...
— The Odds - And Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... seem nonchalant, although he is obviously trying to justify himself.] I dropped by to ...
— Class of '29 • Orrie Lashin and Milo Hastings
... 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 ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... Prohack had glimpses of enormous and magnificent interiors,—some right in the sky, some on the ground—with carved ceilings, rich candelabra, heavily framed pictures, mighty furniture, statuary, and superb and nonchalant menials engaged in the pleasant task of shutting away those interiors from the vulgar gaze. The spectacle continued furlong upon furlong, monotonously. There was no end to the succession of palaces of the wealthy. Then it would be interrupted while Mr. ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... come. But the next market-day, when she sallied forth to sell her eggs, whom should she see but the same ill-looking scoundrel busied in pilfering sundry articles from stall to stall. So she went up to him, and with a nonchalant air addressed him, inquiring after his wife and child, who, she hoped, were both as well as could be expected. "What!" exclaimed the old pixy thief, "do you see me to-day?" "See you! to be sure I do, as plain as I see the sun in ...
— The Science of Fairy Tales - An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology • Edwin Sidney Hartland
... By his tawny beard the children caught him, and clambered Over his knees, and 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 ...
— Poems • William D. Howells
... Bulletin it was a gleeful occasion. Nonchalant reporters sat down with that amazing front page spread out before them, studied the brutal face of Stone and chuckled cynically. Lean Doc Miller, "assistant city editor," or rather head copy reader, lit one cigarette from the stub of another and observed, ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... hands, habitants and farmers—and presented the artist with a handsome bunch of florist's roses, quite in the accepted style of large cities, and her surprise was evident. She started, stared at him, faltered, and might have spoken but for the impassive and nonchalant air with which he faced her. As for Ringfield, a great anger and distress filled his mind. What spasm of reform had animated this fallen, worthless creature to create an impression which could not, in the nature of things, lead to systematic rehabilitation? To ape the garb ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... beside me. 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
... 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, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... of her flying from him into the street, and the little bowed head on the street-car; and the old pity for her, the old bitterness toward him, returned upon me. I wondered how he could speak to her in this nonchalant way; what they were saying to each other; whether they would ever refer to that night at Auriccio's; what Alice would think of him if she ever found it out; whether he was a villain, or only erred passionately; what was actually said in that palm alcove ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... to answer our hail, and invited us aboard. I played the sailor and the man, fending off the skiff so that it would not mar the yacht's white paint, dropping the skiff astern on a long painter, and making the painter fast with two nonchalant half-hitches. ...
— John Barleycorn • Jack London
... gently. He got up and looked down at her, aware of her face, of her hair, her lips, the dimples on her cheeks—seeing the fascination of her person in the night of the gulf as if in the blaze of noonday. Her nonchalant and seductive voice trembled with the excitement of admiring awe and ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... methods is as great as the difference between painting and sculpture. Indeed the novel-writer's methods have always seemed to me analogous to those employed by the painter, and the dramatist's methods similar to those used by the sculptor. And I have marvelled at the nonchalant way in which the fiction writer often rushes into the writing of a play, when a painter would never think of trying to "sculpt" until he had learned at least some of the very different processes employed in the strange art-form of sculpture. The radical difference between ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... 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, ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... 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 beauties of ...
— Judith Of The Plains • Marie Manning
... 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 to ...
— A Romance of the Republic • Lydia Maria Francis Child
... 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 old painters ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... the wireless room placed the oak bars across the door, and tried to believe he was nonchalant and unafraid as he laid out extra clips of cartridges. But his eyes persisted in following the sinking sun, and he watched from within his cage the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... 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 about his heavy crop. Then a man came from a distance ...
— Half a Life-Time Ago • Elizabeth Gaskell
... an ear-piercing shriek that startled me, and caused me to nick my chin with the razor. I shall have to put a bit of flesh-coloured plaster over it. Was that the whistle?" asked the Honourable John in the most tantalising, nonchalant way, as if he had all the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... mirror of her own, which she propped up to suit herself. Miriam was near the window. Suddenly she heard the well-known click of the chain, and she saw Paul fling open the gate, push his bicycle into the yard. She saw him look at the house, and she shrank away. He walked in a nonchalant fashion, and his bicycle went with him as if it were a ...
— Sons and Lovers • David Herbert Lawrence
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... call such a mild affair worthy of the name," and Patty's nonchalant air and unembarrassed manner gave ...
— Patty Blossom • Carolyn Wells
... science appreciated the subject, as historical elements in the history of the human mind, the booksellers of London, Paris, Leipsic, and Frankfort-on-the-Main, to whose notice the subject was brought, exhibited very nearly the same nonchalant tone; and had it not been for the attractive poetic form in which one of our most popular and successful bards has clothed some of these wild myths, the period of their reproduction is likely to have ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... ignorance was the nonchalant excuse of those who pleaded: "We have our grievances too. We all want something that we haven't got. We should all like our incomes raised. But we don't go about striking and rioting." It reminds one of Lord Rosebery's contention, some fifteen years ago, that in point of pleasure ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... of her own initiative. Their parting certainly had been discrepant: the clinging and wistfulness had been hers, though she had uttered nothing of complaint or misgiving. But perhaps he had been too gay and nonchalant, a little too much the husband secure. For a week she had shivered at her loneliness; then she had plunged anew into the flood of affairs, and had come out, as from a cold bath, braced and tingling. Round went the wheels of Wanless. The house was new-papered, ...
— Rest Harrow - A Comedy of Resolution • Maurice Hewlett
... and they parted. Camille had just turned her head and was looking at them. Moreover, quite a number of women had besieged the stall; and the Baroness began to attend to them with the air of a ripe and nonchalant goddess, while Gerard rejoined Duvillard, Fonsegue and Duthil, who were quite excited at the prospect of ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... filled the glasses for myself and Florine, raising mine high as if I would propose a toast. I tapped her banteringly on the cheek, for the benefit of him who watched, and said in a low tone, trying to maintain my nonchalant manner. ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... stone from the quarries of the Gorge, jangled by, some of them drawn by mixed teams of eleven horses and mules, on whose necks chimed collars of bells. Chauffeurs sounded the horns of their motors as they slowly crept through the nonchalant crowd of natives, which had gathered in front of the post-office and the Municipal Theater to discuss the affairs of the day. Maltese coachmen, seated on the boxes of large landaus, cracked their ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... qualities of love and amiability, George was not losing greatly by the exchange. When, however, at the end of three months, George's capricious symptoms disappeared as suddenly as they had come, and his attentions lapsed into casual expressions of a nonchalant kindness, she drew a breath of relief, and devoted her happiest days to the nursery. There at least she had found a stable refuge amid the turmoil ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow
... big that branches of oaks in its passage catch it. In front, walks the driver, with a look of soft resignation, a big, peaceful boy, red as the ferns, red as the autumn, with a reddish fur in a bush on his bare chest; he walks with a supple and nonchalant manner, his arms extended like those of a cross on his goad, placed across his shoulders. Thus, doubtless, on these same mountains, marched his ancestors, farm laborers and cowboys like him ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... the latent floods of pity gushed; people sprang to their feet, and somewhere in the wide auditory a woman sobbed. Habitues of a celebrated Salon des Etrangers recall the tradition of a Hungarian nobleman who, apparently calm, nonchalant, debonair, gambled desperately; "while his right hand, resting easily inside the breast of his coat, clutched and lacerated his flesh till his nails dripped with blood." With emotions somewhat analogous, Mr. Dunbar sat as participant in this judicial rouge et noir, where the stakes were a ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... again. "Is Mr. Bickett in this country? " she asked, her voice carefully nonchalant. "I have not heard anything about him ...
— Revelations of a Wife - The Story of a Honeymoon • Adele Garrison
... her," said Polly, in a nonchalant tone, flinging up the sash of the bedroom window as she spoke, and indulging in a ...
— Polly - A New-Fashioned Girl • L. T. Meade
... the law once more performed their duty. This time a guard was posted before the swami's cell. Might again retired before right. Trailanga was soon observed in his nonchalant stroll over the roof. Justice is blind; the outwitted police decided to follow ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... was still nonchalant—"the Haves against the Haven'ts. No nonsense left, by that time, about 'blood' and 'family.' Society will have dropped all those little trimmings and embroideries. We shall have come to the ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... 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 ...
— Operas Every Child Should Know - Descriptions of the Text and Music of Some of the Most Famous Masterpieces • Mary Schell Hoke Bacon
... was not 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 you hadn't ...
— The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig • David Graham Phillips
... luxury, and this joy of life brought back to my memory the vision of our Bois de Boulogne, so elegant and so animated a few years before, when Napoleon III. used to drive through on his daumont, nonchalant and smiling. Ah, how beautiful it was in those days—our Bois de Boulogne, with the officers caracoling in the Avenue des Acacias, admired by our ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... 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 ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... men, no braver than their master, shifted their positions in a nonchalant manner so as to be screened by their superiors in case of our firing, and on second thoughts, judging even such a precaution to ensure them but scanty safety, they one after the other got up, walked steadily away for half-a-dozen steps, to show ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... it matter to me?" I said, affecting to speak in a nonchalant way. "I shall never see this woman again, and if I liked her before meeting her, it is quite different now ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... him stood the familiar form of the Jan Lucar; and a few feet beyond, a figure from which came a clear, cool, nonchalant voice; ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... was supporting her, and she found it hard to credit the fact that it was he, the hard, nonchalant man of the world she knew, who had spoken. She clutched his ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... sweet, placid, moonlight face, And slightly nonchalant, Which seems to claim a middle place Between one's love and aunt, Where childhood's star has left a ray In woman's sunniest sky, As morning dew and blushing day On ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... not the man to put up with such an insult, and that he would kill Shatov, but with the secrecy of a Corsican vendetta. People liked this idea, but the majority of our young people listened with contempt, and with an air of the most nonchalant indifference, which was, of course, assumed. The old hostility to Nikolay Vsyevolodovitch in the town was in general strikingly manifest. Even sober-minded people were eager to throw blame on him though they could not have ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... alike testified to an amount of heterogeneous business. Busy the Consul undoubtedly was, writing 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 smiled ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... they abandoned all their pretence of nonchalant confidence and did not talk at all. Of course, they knew Florette would come in her own good time, but the stifling atmosphere of that musty hole and the thought of ...
— Tom Slade with the Boys Over There • Percy K. Fitzhugh
... no hurry to depart, and I was equally anxious to engage him in conversation. For although he was dressed with the trim and quiet precision of the foreigner or man of affairs, there was something about his beardless face, his broadly humorous mouth, and easy, nonchalant bearing which suggested the person who juggled always with the ball ...
— The Master Mummer • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the major his jaw squared itself determinedly. There was a rather forceful sort of man appearing under the nonchalant David whom his friends had known for years. A wild pride stirred in Phoebe to such an extent that she caught her breath while she waited for ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... girl who was able to twist him around her little finger and make him follow her about as if he were a green and callow youth. Palgrave, the lady-killer; Palgrave, the egoist; Palgrave, the superlative person, who, with nonchalant impertinence, had picked ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... 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 ...
— The Prince and Betty - (American edition) • P. G. Wodehouse
... repentant, came to the door and coughed propitiously, but Captain Scraggs pretended not to hear, and went on with his task of turning fried eggs with an artistic flip of the frying pan. So Mr. Gibney spoke, struggling bravely to appear nonchalant. With his eyes on the fried eggs and his mouth threatening to slaver at the glorious sight, ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... Thomasson entered. He treated the strangers to a distant bow, and, without looking at them, took his seat with a nonchalant ease, becoming a man who travelled with viscountesses, and was at home in the best company. The table had his first hungry glance. He espied roast and cold, a pair of smoking ducklings just set on, a dish of trout, a round of beef, a pigeon-pie, and hot rolls. Relieved, he heaved ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... man leaped from the omnibus and took the La Muette tramway, following the boulevard Haussmann and the avenue Victor Hugo. Baudru alighted at La Muette station; and, with a nonchalant air, strolled ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... that moment a barge, with her red sails set, stood out of the fog clean across the bows of the Customs boat, which narrowly escaped instant destruction. When they got clear, and the usual interchange of calm, nonchalant swearing was over, the dinghy was barely to be discerned in the mist, and the fat man was breathing in such a manner that his sighs might almost have been heard on the banks. Racksole wanted violently to ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... quarantine freely as we rode along, yet no one ventured any proposition looking to an agreement as to who should go on the diplomatic mission. I was the youngest and naturally took refuge behind my years, yet perfectly conscious that, in spite of the indifferent and nonchalant attitude assumed, all three of us foremen were equally anxious for the chance. Matters remained undecided; but the next day at dinner, Lovell having met us before reaching the railroad, the question arose who should go up to Miles City. Dave and Quince were also eating at my wagon, ...
— The Outlet • Andy Adams
... come in a moment," he answered, trying to assume a nonchalant voice, such as that in which a hardened major of dragoons announces that in his time he was a ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... to be solved when we understand the laws of 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.
... exquisitely beautiful; beautiful always, but more so now in the pathos of her helplessness. Somewhat perfunctorily, because in his ignorance of women he thought that it would please her, and also because vaguely something human and elemental had suddenly roused his pulses, he relinquished his nonchalant attitude, and came ...
— The Nest of the Sparrowhawk • Baroness Orczy
... innocent must suffer sometimes," quoth the nonchalant philosopher. It was sharply revealed to David that ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... complete approach to the "American" type in emotional display, in what is known as poise. This third generation Jewish-American has dropped all the mannerisms of excitability in gesture and voice, and his adherence to good form includes that attitude of nonchalant humor ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... veil; her face glowed; a long sigh escaped her lips. Slowly she walked down the steps, along the sloping path to a turn, where she sank down on a bench. A rosy, tired child, rather the worse for mud-pies, and hanging reluctantly at the hand of its nonchalant nurse, brought a bit of the woman's emotion to the surface. She smiled radiantly ...
— The Stolen Singer • Martha Idell Fletcher Bellinger
... 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 just ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser
... washing up the dishes. If Helen had engaged Mrs. Finn, everything would be all right. She knew them and she would wait. Still, he didn't like putting anybody off—he was neither quite too poor nor quite too affluent to be nonchalant in his postponement ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... Lawson, as nonchalant as a wild-horse wrangler well could be. "An' as fer me, now I allus lays perfickly still when the centipedes an' tarantulers begin to drop from their holes in the roof, same as them holes up there. An' when they light on me, I never move, nor even breathe fer about five minutes. ...
— The Last of the Plainsmen • Zane Grey
... man made any move toward shaking hands, although it was obvious that they were acquainted, at least. The great detective's tone when he greeted his visitor was as distinctly ironical as the latter's was uneasy, although he replied with a mirthless chuckle, which was intended to be airily nonchalant. ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... The nonchalant cow-boys riding about the camp, the somber squaw-men (attended by their blanketed wives and groups of wistful half-breed children), and the ragged old medicine men all in their several ways made up a marvelous scene, rich with survivals ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... said in the most nonchalant manner imaginable, "we've got a dandy, strolling, gipsy band up at the hotel; the dining-room floor is all waxed and I'm asking for the first dance with the young and radiant Mrs. Carter. Get into a glad rag ...
— The Melting of Molly • Maria Thompson Daviess
... 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 ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... said the Count quietly, and, bowing, he withdrew with the same nonchalant air as he had entered. Trust the devil to know ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... Joan bent her attention on the stage once more, though all the time that her eyes and ears were absorbing the shifting scenes and brilliant dialogue of the play a little, persistent inner voice at the back of her brain kept repeating Diana's nonchalant "I really don't see very much of her nowadays," and ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... hand, leaving me with such anxiety in their faces that I felt it more than my own peril, Louison gave me a tender look out of her fine eyes, and the thought of it was a light to my soul in many an hour of darkness. She had seemed so cool, so nonchalant, I was surprised to feel the tremor in her nerves. I knew not words to say ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... 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
... the 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, ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... 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. Tommy realized perfectly that ...
— The Secret Adversary • Agatha Christie
... that Mark left. There had been a time when the first move for departure was as trying as the ordeal of entrance, but he had got beyond that. Tonight he felt that he did it in quite an easy nonchalant way, the ladies, true to a gracious tradition, trailing after him into the hall. It was there that an unexpected blow fell; Chrystie, the enfant terrible, delivered it. Gliding about to the hummed refrain of the Castanet song her eye fell on his card. She ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... afternoon, the stage resembled pandemonium rather than the schoolroom of Miss Minchen's Select Seminary, which was to be the scene of the first act. The committee were tired and, to speak frankly, cross, with the exception of Madeline, who was provokingly cool and nonchalant, though she had worked harder than any one else. The cast were infected with that irresponsible hilarity that always attacks an amateur company at their last rehearsal. They danced about the stage, getting in the way of the ...
— Betty Wales Senior • Margaret Warde
... engaged in the conflict bore some token of its severity. I did not wait for the thunder-storm I foresaw: I rose with a nonchalant yaw n of ennui—marched out of the apartment, called a servant—demanded my own room—repaired to it, and immersed the internal faculties of my head in Mignet's History of the Revolution, while Bedos busied himself in its ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... caught Bronson's eye an expression came over his face, which, if Fotheringham had seen, would have saved him a vast amount of trouble. But the messenger, too busy to notice his visitor, paid him no attention, and in a moment Bronson was puffing his cigar with a nonchalant air, that would disarm any suspicions which the messenger might have entertained, but he had none, as it was a common practice to send new men over his run, that he might "break ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... a while, maintaining a pretense of nonchalant interest in Jontarou's flowers and colorful bug life. She experienced the most curious little chills of alarm from time to time, but discovered no signs of a lurking intruder, or of TT either. Then, for half an hour or more, she'd just sat ...
— Novice • James H. Schmitz
... have our opinions, to be sure, but I think it rather a good style." Brent was provokingly nonchalant, and his attitude ...
— The Uncalled - A Novel • Paul Laurence Dunbar
... beautiful customer by a renowned French dressmaker: "Un rien et madame est habillee!" They are coquettishly revealing their claims to the Eve-bitten fruit which Paris holds in his hand. Paris and his friend are in the most nonchalant of attitudes. They could not be more indifferent, or more superior in appearance, were they dandies judging the class for costermonger's donkeys at a provincial horse-show. The three most beautiful women in ...
— Germany and the Germans - From an American Point of View (1913) • Price Collier
... ribbon and the saddle and bridle to be awarded to the best rider were just now entering, ready mounted, from a door beneath the tiers of seats, and were slowly making the tour of the circle around the judges' stand. One by one they came, with a certain nonchalant pride of demeanor, conscious of an effort to display themselves and their horses to the greatest advantage, and yet a little ashamed of the consciousness. For the most part they were young men, prosperous ...
— The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain and Other Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... the cattlemen's bunks?" Nippers asked of an oiler who stood, nonchalant, somewhat contemptuous, looking over the side at ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... lay across the threshold without a sign of life. The buzz of the roulette-wheel was resumed and the crap- dealer began his monotonous routine. Every eye was fixed on the nonchalant man at the bar, but the unconscious creature outside the threshold lay unheeded, for in these men's code it behooves the most humane to practise a certain aloofness in the ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach
... to Henry and me, considering our feelings, that the Major's nonchalant use of that "we" was without the consent of the governed. But when he started forward we followed. Our moral cowardice overwhelmed our physical cowardice, and our legs tracked ahead while our hearts tracked back. The Major swung along the road at a fast clip; Mr. ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... Englishman, 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 upon ...
— A Castle in Spain - A Novel • James De Mille
... curt nod, and departed, in nonchalant good-humour, doubtless considering that to accompany his chum any farther would be to be guilty of girlish sentimentality. And Edwin nodded with equal curtness and made off slowly into the maze of Bursley. The thought in his heart was: "I'm on my own, now. I've got to face it ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... 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
... included), the man-handled 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 mortally scared ...
— The Road • Jack London
... 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 before he was through ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... 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 ...
— Menhardoc • George Manville Fenn
... how it is," he said, with a nonchalant gesture that was belied by his grating tone. "I am afraid I must postpone my branch of this inquiry till a later ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... 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
... return, And smould'ring fires leap up an hour and 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, ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... machine was an old farm wagon, and in front of that were four horses. On the seat of the wagon sat a nonchalant-looking farmer who seemed to take ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... and boots were perfect of their kind, albeit they had seen good wear. He had been heard to declare that he had rather wear feathers and war-paint, like a red Indian, than a coat made by a third-rate tailor. He was tall and inclining to stoutness, broad-shouldered, and with an easy carriage and a nonchalant air, which were not without their charm. He had what most people called a patrician look—that is to say the air of never having done anything useful in the whole course of his existence—not such a patrician as a Palmerston, a Russell, a Derby, or a Salisbury, but the ideal lotus-eating aristocrat, ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... that look passed between them. It penetrated Tewfick's nonchalant guard and brought the unaccustomed color to his olive cheeks. His handsome eyes turned uneasily aside. A girl's pique perhaps, at the situation, her last defiance of his power,—but for all his reassurance there was something deeper in that look, something ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... exquisite workmanship. The queen knighted him, gave him a sword, and said, "Whoever striketh at you, Drake, striketh at us." A band of musicians accompanied the fleet, and the English sailor went to circumnavigate the globe with the same nonchalant magnificence with which in other days the gorgeous Alcibiades, with flutes and soft recorders blowing under silken sails, came idling ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... Christobal was annoyed. Notwithstanding his conventional polish, he was not a man to conceal his feelings when deeply stirred. Yet Elsie failed to catch his intent, other than that he was adopting his usual nonchalant tone. ...
— The Captain of the Kansas • Louis Tracy
... past the mess-house, from the doorway of which the aproned cook eyed her with frank curiosity, hailing his employer with nonchalant air, a cigarette resting in one corner of his mouth. Benton opened the door of the second building. Stella followed ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... Milo Standish looked down at the nonchalant invalid. Above, the sounds of women's steps and an occasional snatch of a sentence could be heard. ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... moment, 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 have ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... torporific[obs3]; sleepy &c. (inactive) 683; languid, half-hearted, tame; numbed; comatose; anaesthetic &c. 376; stupefied, chloroformed, drugged, stoned; palsy-stricken. indifferent, lukewarm; careless, mindless, regardless; inattentive &c. 458; neglectful &c. 460; disregarding. unconcerned, nonchalant, pococurante[obs3], insouciant, sans souci[Fr]; unambitious &c. 866. unaffected, unruffled, unimpressed, uninspired, unexcited, unmoved, unstirred, untouched, unshocked[obs3], unstruck[obs3]; unblushing ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... not express the assurance he tried to put into his voice. He went back to the piano and leaned on it, his posture such that it might have indicated a nonchalant ease or, equally well, might have betrayed his desperate ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... occurred to her for the first time that there must be good material in a man who could come through in a contest with death, nonchalant. She would fetch him and have him here to meet Cutty, this rather forlorn Johnny Two-Hawks, with his unshaven face, his black eye, and his nonchalance. She would fetch him at once. It would save a good deal ...
— The Drums Of Jeopardy • Harold MacGrath
... all right," answered the nonchalant little woman, undoing her jacket. "Shake hands with your grandfather, George. That's right—don't talk too much," she added, with a half-nervous little laugh, as the old man, with a kind of fixed smile, and the child shook ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... into his eyes, 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
... 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 ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... correctly recall it," was the nonchalant reply. "As to the viands, you will mention that they have been gathered from every part of the world. Now come with me, and I will give you a hasty sketch of the house, while the guests are assembling in the grand salon. Then you will remain in ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... by 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 of ...
— The Indifference of Juliet • Grace S. Richmond
... 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 ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... his companion had seen in the Ludovisi gardens a wonderfully beautiful girl, strolling in the train of this conspicuous couple. He looked for her now, and in a moment she appeared, following her companions with the same nonchalant step as before, and leading her great snow-white poodle, decorated with motley ribbons. The elder lady offered the two young men a sufficiently gracious salute; the little old gentleman bowed and smiled with extreme alertness. The young girl, without casting a glance either at Roderick or at Rowland, ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James
... 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 Christmas Books • William Makepeace Thackeray
... never to have interfered, or taken any interest in the matter, and Palmerston conducted it all just as he thought fit. This year Cabinet after Cabinet passed over, and no mention was ever made of the affairs of the East, till one day, at the end of a Cabinet, Palmerston, in the most easy nonchalant way imaginable, said that he thought it right to mention that he had been for a long time engaged in negotiation upon the principles agreed upon at the Cabinet at Windsor, and that he had drawn up a Treaty, with which it was fit the Cabinet should be acquainted. At this sudden announcement his colleagues ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... is probable that Mr. Blake will find there is no chance to water Dry Mesa," she replied, in a tone strangely nonchalant considering her former expressions of apprehension. She drew the crumpled letter from his relaxing fingers, and smoothed it out ...
— Out of the Depths - A Romance of Reclamation • Robert Ames Bennet
... sweet, placid, moonlight face, And slightly nonchalant, Which seems to hold a middle place Between one's ...
— Geoffrey Strong • Laura E. Richards
... presume?" and seeing he was right, he added, with a nonchalant air, "Glad to see ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... handed to me, and at the same time the sauce-dish was uncomfortably near my neck, and directly under my nose. This was too nonchalant, and my surprise was still greater when the servant, in an unnatural and gruff voice, said, "Do you want any of this stuff?" I looked up at the man, and recognized a twinkle in a familiar eye, and as the twinkle was accentuated by a powerful wink I began ...
— In the Courts of Memory 1858-1875. • L. de Hegermann-Lindencrone
... so placidly nonchalant as in ordinary; still, he was by far the most trying visitor that Ethelberta had lately faced, and she could not get above the stage—not a very high one for the mistress of a house—of feeling her personality to be inconveniently in the way of his eyes. He had somewhat the bearing of a man who ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... his own image. His resourceful brain refused its functions. He could not guess her movements after that silent, definitive leave taking. He could but picture her tall, erect figure, outwardly composed and nonchalant, as she must have stood, facing the outer world, looking out to what—to what? A mad hope rose in his breast. Would she turn to him? Would her instinctive steps lead ...
— Out of the Ashes • Ethel Watts Mumford
... offspring with a butcher-knife in his boot, a six-shooter at his belt, and a rifle in his hand. Frank himself was less of a buccaneer and was conspicuous because he was practically the only man in Little Missouri who did not carry arms. He was big-hearted and not without charm in his nonchalant disregard of the moralities, but there was no truth in him, and he was so foul-mouthed that he became the model for the youth of Little Missouri, the ideal of what ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... people,' was the nonchalant reply, with shoulders depressed, and a twinkle of the eye, as if he purposed amazing ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... easy and nonchalant; but inwardly he carried a load of dread and he saw clearly that he must learn where he stood with little Miss Blythe, or not know the feeling of easiness from one day to the next. Better, he thought, to be the recipient of a painful and undeserved ultimatum, than ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... appear nonchalant but his eyes widened regardless. Sam enjoyed this. He said, "Yes, you'll have as ...
— Mr. Chipfellow's Jackpot • Dick Purcell
... rather late in the day to assume that nonchalant air which has, from time immemorial, adorned the ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... pupils ended, especially as the lids were habitually half closed, as if weighed down by the black length of their borders. The habit of arching up one or other of the eyebrows, in surprise or interrogation, gave a drollery to the otherwise nonchalant sweetness of the countenance. The mass of raven black hair was only adorned by a crimson ribbon, beneath which it had been thrust into a net, with a long thing that had once been a curl on the shoulder of the white tumbled bodice worn over a gray skirt which looked as if it had done solitary ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... at first sight. His 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 curl ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... on board we were able to have a few hasty words with those we knew, and their faces seem to pass in front of me as I write: Sir John Willoughby and Captain C. Villiers, both in the Royal Horse Guards, apparently nonchalant and without a care in the world; Colonel Harry White—alas! dead—and his brother Bobby, who were as fit as possible and as cheery as ever, but inclined to be mutinous with their unwilling gaolers; Major Stracey,[6] Scots ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... sweetheart. We have, therefore, to examine expressions of love cautiously. Anacreon says, for instance, that love clave him with an axe, like a smith; but it seems far more likely that the reference is to the affection excited by some charming youth.[1] We have a specimen remaining of the nonchalant style in which he addressed a woman, in the ode commencing "O Thracian mare!"—Schneidewin, Poet. ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... heart had given a throb of nervousness at the introduction of the subject, and she had instinctively lifted her eyes to glance at the handsome figure a few yards ahead, but her pride would not allow her to show her discomfiture. No one would have suspected that a personal interest lay behind the nonchalant question. ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... wider, and he was for ever restless, shrugging up his shoulder as though his coat cut him under the armpits, blinking, clearing his throat, and gesticulating with his fingers, while his son was distinguished by a kind of nonchalant immobility. ...
— Fathers and Children • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev
... Arneel first ambled in quite informally, Hand, Schryhart, and Merrill appearing separately very shortly after. Rubbing their hands and mopping their faces with their handkerchiefs, they looked about them, making an attempt to appear as nonchalant and cheerful as possible under such trying circumstances. There were many old acquaintances and friends to greet, inquiries to be made as to the health of wives and children. Mr. Arneel, clad in yellowish linen, with a white silk shirt of lavender stripe, and carrying ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... the erudite physicist, dwarfed by the big chassis, gave the appearance of a small boy trying to hide an outsize treasure; but the nonchalant humor that normally poked constant fun at both his profession as a physicist and the traditions of his Chinese ancestors, ...
— Where I Wasn't Going • Walt Richmond
... patriotism from this nonchalant private was a straw too much for Westerling's patience. He made a nervous gesture—a distinctly nervous one as he dropped the teaspoon. He would ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... us or busied themselves noisily with affairs of their own; Worth sat and enjoyed his meal with the air of a man feeding at a solitary country tavern. When he had finished—and he took his time about it—the worn, punished look was gone from his face; his eye was bright, his tone nonchalant, as ...
— The Million-Dollar Suitcase • Alice MacGowan
... 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
... to reason with the thing—point out how foolish it is to waste its time on us," I suggested, trying to appear as nonchalant as he was. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... found that the nonchalant and care-free attitude of the average British officer was really a mask and simulated to keep his mind off the whole beastly business: this great big dirty job which white ...
— "Crumps", The Plain Story of a Canadian Who Went • Louis Keene
... her first few visits to the bank. On these earlier occasions she had felt rather like an inexpert forger, who was endeavouring to get money by false pretence, and it was both a relief and a wonder to her when the nonchalant cashier thrust thick wads of bank-notes under the grille, without so much as ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... amused with the awkwardness and nonchalant manners of the servants in America. Two American ladies who had just returned from Europe, told me that shortly after their arrival at Boston, a young man had been sent to them from Vermont to do the duty of footman. He had been a day or two in the house, when they rang the bell and ordered ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... most provokingly nonchalant of men in times of peril, should begin to show a nervous strain was all the more indicative of a ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... 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 ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... went about the pair. Neither heard nor indeed heeded it. The old man was easy, almost nonchalant; the young ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject, but there was that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last man with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... like the dancers of a dream, and the music as far off as another world, they clung together in the rhythm and in the enchantment, until the music ceased.... The strong girl threw Audrey carelessly off, and walked away, breathing hard. And there was something in the strong girl's nonchalant and curt departure which woke a chord in Audrey's soul that had never been wakened before. Audrey could scarcely credit that she was on the same planet as Essex. She had many dances with men whom she hoped and believed she had been introduced to by Tommy, and no less than seventeen persons of ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... "Bully," was the nonchalant reply. "The best thing about her is the way she takes up for a fellow when he brings in a bad report or gets into a scrape. Fathers always think it's ...
— The Dreamer - A Romantic Rendering of the Life-Story of Edgar Allan Poe • Mary Newton Stanard |
