"Portiere" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... character but exquisite in taste, had something monastic about it; the walls, hung with a cheap glazed cotton selected with taste, of a color which harmonized with the furniture and was newly covered, gave the room an air of elegance and nicety. In the hallway he added a double door, with a "portiere" to the inner one. The window was shaded by a blind which gave soft tones to the light. If the poor mother's life was reduced to the plainest circumstances that the life of any woman could have in Paris, Agathe was at least better off ...
— The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... in the cozy corner the school-teacher had made with a portiere and some cushions, and I saw she was about ready to break down and cry. I went over to her and took her hand, for she was my own niece, although she didn't suspect it, and I had never had a child of ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... two doors to the parlour, and Katherine went by way of the library one, over which a portiere was hanging. Her hand was lifted to draw it back when she heard ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1907 to 1908 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... ever played me dirt can stay here while I stay." Sinclair, with a hand on the portiere, was moving from the doorway into the room. McCloud in a leisurely way rose, though with a slightly flushed face, and at that juncture Marion ran into the room and spoke abruptly. "Here is the silk, Mr. Sinclair," ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... the portiere that separates the breakfast-room from the parlor beyond: "Yes!" She goes up and gives her hand to Mr. Welling with friendly frankness. "And it was very nice of you to think of me at such a time, when you ought to have been thinking of ...
— A Likely Story • William Dean Howells
... godfathers, what's my gift today?" he laughed. "A golden goose, a magic ring, or a beautiful Cinderella hidden behind the curtain?" and he poked at the portiere playfully. "But you have the appearance of conspirators. Is it only ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... the domed hall and its sparkling fountain, and in two or three minutes came to a deep archway veiled by a portiere of some rich stuff woven in russet brown and gold,—this curtain my guide threw back noiselessly, showing a closed door. Here he came to a standstill and waited—I waited with him, trying to be calm, though my mind was in a perfect tumult of expectation ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... deal ashamed of himself as they returned to the drawing-room. In all that had gone before, he had been a victim of circumstances. He had an uncomfortable conviction that his position now was not wholly unlike that of an impostor. But as he pushed aside the portiere he beheld a pair of blue eyes which, he flattered himself, betrayed an expression of pleased expectancy—and ...
— A Border Ruffian - 1891 • Thomas A. Janvier
... before Mrs. O'Brien. If so, walk in," he answered, moving the portiere aside for ...
— Other Things Being Equal • Emma Wolf
... Split had drawn it off, pillows and all, and she flew up-stairs, carrying Kate in her wake to help her pull down a portiere which she intended transforming ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... rest, good Mere des Seraphins," replied Amelie, to whom the portiere was well known. "We desire to leave the world and live henceforth with the community in the service and adoration of our blessed Lord, and to pray for the sins of others as well as ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... disturbed at this news, and a confused longing, a criminal desire, surged through my mind; I did not formulate it, but I felt it in my heart, ready to come to the surface, as if some one hidden behind a portiere should await the signal to come out. If some accident might only happen! So many of these little beings ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... sweep of her half bare arm, she brushed aside a portiere and disappeared. A crashing chord rolled out from a piano behind the curtains ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... he. "not only has La Voisin been arrested, but her private papers have been seized." So saying, he bowed again and disappeared behind the portiere. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... her in silence. He had not suspected her of so much intellect. He glanced about the apartment, at the cheap portiere flung over the sofa; at the gaudy sofa cushions, two of which bore the names and colours of certain colleges. The gas log was almost hidden by dried palm leaves, a cigarette stump lay on the fender; on the mantel above were several photographs of men and ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... a deadly earnestness, Thorpe reached forward, seized the astonished servant by the collar, yanked him bodily outside the door, stepped inside, and strode across the hall toward a closed portiere whence had come the voice. The riverman's long spikes cut little triangular pieces from the hardwood floor. Thorpe did not notice that. He thrust aside ...
— The Blazed Trail • Stewart Edward White
... her cousins conversed for some time on what had happened during the protracted separation, as well as on domestic affairs and their private feelings, when Chia Cheng likewise advanced as far as the other side of the portiere, and inquired after her health, and the Chia consort from inside performed the homage and other conventionalities ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... the ladies left the table, and Philip rose and held aside the portiere while his ...
— Patty's Success • Carolyn Wells
... sound of that falling body he had already reached the doorway and torn aside the heavy portiere. It was a sleeping-room he looked into, a room of medium size with two windows and an ornate bed of the Empire style set sidewise against the farther wall. There were electric lights upon imitation candles which were ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... Through a half-drawn portiere they descried the doctor writing in the nearby room. She was bending over an American desk, but she saw them immediately in a mirror which she kept always in front of her in order to spy on all that was ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... went down the slope, slid and slipped and couldn't stop themselves, till they were below the landmark. Looking up, they saw that a piece of soiled canvas or a skin, held down with a drift-log, fell from under the sled, portiere-wise from the top of the terrace, straight down to the sheltered level, where the camp fire had been. Coming closer, they saw the curtain was not canvas, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... their brother, but he pretended not to see them, being disposed for some reason to grant my request. Taking advantage of the momentary hesitation that ensued, I made them all three my most conciliatory bow, and said as I retreated behind the portiere: ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... had listened for swish of skirts or fall of slender feet upon the stairway, but there had not been a sound. They saw the reason as she halted at the entrance, lifting with one little hand the costly Navajo blanket that hung as a portiere. In harmony with the glossy folds of richly dyed wool, she was habited in Indian garb from head to foot. In two black, lustrous braids, twisted with feather and quill and ribbon, her wealth of hair hung over her shoulders down the front of her slender form. A robe of dark blue stuff, ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... face of his old friend, he knew that he must nerve himself for a shock. Alas! His surmise was only too correct. They entered the main room of the house together, Peters in the rear. Drawing aside from the entrance to the room a portiere—Peters had already visited the room—Pym passed in, Peters remaining on the outer side of the curtained doorway, that he might prevent others from following, or even from viewing the young friend who was now to receive one of the keenest stabs with which ...
— A Strange Discovery • Charles Romyn Dake
... could hear the distant dying swish of silk, the rustling of the portiere, and then, with a flick, the lights came up again. Half-blinded by the sudden illumination Steel fumbled his way to the door and into the street. As he did so Hove Town Hall clock chimed two. With a cigarette between his teeth David ...
— The Crimson Blind • Fred M. White
... and it would be well. He walked down the hall leisurely, turned into the big parlour, momentarily deserted, walked quickly but softly over its polished floor to a door that gave into the library, pushed the heavy portiere aside and ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... backing to portiere and hiding her face in its folds.) The—the Almost Inevitable Consequences! (Flits through portiere as G. attempts to catch her, and bolts her self in ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... portiere wound tightly around her body to below the armpits, and held there by skillfully adjusted bands of black velvet, a fillet of the same so low that it touched her eyebrows secured about her boxed and brilliantly blond hair, she ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... alongside the hut tenanted by Mrs Scott and her nieces. That appalling yell effectually awakened the entire occupants of the hut; and whilst they were sitting up on their pallets, rubbing their eyes and wondering what the terrible sound might portend, the portiere was pushed aside and the professor, bearing a hand-lamp, unceremoniously made his appearance before them with an earnest request that they would dress with all speed and join him on the outside of the hut, where he would await ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... hour when her door was open to all who had enjoyed the honor of being presented to her. The courtiers stood in groups and conversed in light whispers over the on-dits of the day, and turning their eyes from time to time to the portiere of purple velvet which separated them from the boudoir of the signora; from that point must the sun rise to illuminate ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... Basil Randolph, alongside his portiere, as but the observer, the raisonneur, in this narrative? If so, you err. What!—you may ask,—a rival, ...
— Bertram Cope's Year • Henry Blake Fuller
... seeds or beads of silvery-gray, called 'Job's Tears,' which grow on a stalk resembling growing corn; and to think Professor Schmidt raised those which Elizabeth strung on linen thread, alternately with beads, for a portiere ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas
... cave was protected against the cold by a heavy blanket hung over a pole anchored at either end in the rocky side at the top. Pushing aside this wilderness portiere, the four investigators stepped in, lighting their way with two or ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... there he did not know, but presently he was aroused by the sound of footsteps. He listened. Some one—the rustling of a dress—was approaching the room. He slipped the note into the book and replaced the volume on the pedestal, and quickly stepped behind the portiere curtains. ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... man, who had been announcing the numbers, now swung aside the portiere, and Nancy slipped from her chair, ran out upon the stage, and then,—oh, the fairy motion of her arms, the lightness with which, on the tips of her toes, she flew across ...
— Dorothy Dainty at the Mountains • Amy Brooks
... There hung beside the door-casing a hook, designed to hold the portiere cord. Eleanor brushed too close; it caught in the lace at her throat. She pulled up with a jerk, gave a little cry; the lace held fast. She turned—in the ...
— The Readjustment • Will Irwin
... one the girl used more, almost, than any other, and little suggestions of her were scattered about it. On a bench was a piece of woman's work with the threaded needle pushed through the stuff as when she laid it aside, flowers she had gathered were on the table, the portiere masking the door was her embroidery. Perhaps all these forced an association of ideas. Picking the strings out one by one half unconsciously, the air of the love song followed the shift of the hand, and equally unconsciously his voice took up the ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... the November nights were growing chilly. Joyce picked up a book and tried to read, but found herself looking towards the door fully as often as at the page before her. Presently she set her teeth together and swallowed hard, for there was a rustling in the hall. The portiere was pushed aside and madame swept into the room in a dinner-gown ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... could answer they heard the door leading into the apartment open and close, and some one stepping quickly across the hall to the room in which they stood. The entrance to the room was hung with a portiere, and as the three men paused in silence this portiere was pushed back, and a young lady stood in the doorway, holding the curtains apart with her two hands. She was smiling, and the smile lighted a face that was inexpressibly bright and honest and true. Aram's face had been lowered, but ...
— Cinderella - And Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... he were to take McLean at his word. No! It wasn't Hatton, unless something very unforeseen had suddenly called him away. Stepping quickly back into the room he felt a draught of cool air, and saw that the portiere that hung between the two rooms was bulging slightly toward him. Instantly he stepped into his bedroom, where all was dark, struck a match, and saw, the moment its flash illumined surrounding objects, that the one door he generally kept locked was now ajar. It led into the hall, and thither ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... of the apartment. A Persian rug lay in the center, and took the fullest light. There were no sharp edges of shadow, but instead there was a softly graduated penumbra, deepening into murk. Straight across was a doorway with a portiere, beyond was another, and still farther, a third, all made visible in silhouette by the light in a fourth room, seen as at the end of ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick
... the large door opening out into the hall, and saw a group of Indian scouts; they laid a coffee-sack down by the corner fire-place, near the front door. The commanding officer left the table hastily; the portiere was drawn. ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... way to allow her to go into the other room, and seeing that she desired to be alone he drew the portiere. ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... could perceive a growing embarrassment in her manner as de Valence came closer to her, remembering, for so she must, that we could hear every word through the portiere. She collected herself bravely; de Valence ...
— 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
... bowed, saluted and backed away. We were ALONE!... 'In ten minutes,' he said, 'you will be conducted to another room. When you arrive advance to the middle, make a right wheel and stand at attention facing the portiere. Maintain perfect silence, answer all question,—make NO inquiries—understand?'... I was taken downstairs, along a wide corridor to a solid-oak door guarded by two sentries and an attendant in the Royal livery. The door ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... Europe through the intercourse of the early Portuguese traders and missionaries with the East Indies, is the brief mention by Margaret S. Burton of a very elaborate old quilt now in a New York collection: "My next find was a tremendous bed quilt which is used as a portiere for double folding doors. It formed part of a collection of hangings owned by the late Stanford White. He claimed there were only four of its kind in existence, and this the only one in America. It is valued at $1,000. It is a Portuguese bed quilt and was embroidered ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... portiere and stepped into the living room Eugene Snow rose to meet her. What either of them expected it might be difficult to explain. Knowing so little of each other, it is very possible that they had no visualizations. What ...
— Her Father's Daughter • Gene Stratton-Porter
... female figures taking their seats in the softly lighted room beyond. One sat with her back to the light, and her features were not distinctly visible; the other was where he could see three-quarters of her face clearly relieved against the tapestry portiere. There is a kind of beauty which makes glad every human heart that gazes on it, if not utterly corrupt and vile, and it was such a face as this that Sam Sleeny now looked at with a heart that grew happier as he gazed. It was ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... hall entrance to the drawing-room. I saw something that gleamed like polished metal in his uplifted hand. Then he fell back and disappeared. It seemed as though some invisible force behind the portiere had taken sudden and irresistible possession of him. What did I care. I went forward and into the room, absolutely empty save for an upright cabinet of mahogany placed on a central pedestal. It was tall enough to conceal a person standing behind it, but it was not the Lady Allegra ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... the door of their room and with his arm advanced to open it, he faltered. On the flight of stairs below the head of the girl who had been locking up appeared. His arm fell. He thought, "I'll wait till she is gone"—and stepped back within the perpendicular folds of a portiere. ...
— Tales of Unrest • Joseph Conrad
... fatigued look as he rested one hand on the portiere and the other on his hip, he appeared quite as she had last seen him. "Are you ...
— Laramie Holds the Range • Frank H. Spearman
... Paris at the beginning of 1831. Her establishment there was of the simplest. It consisted of three little rooms on the fifth story (a mansarde) in a house on the Quai Saint-Michel. She did the washing and ironing herself, the portiere assisting her in the rest of the household work. The meals came from a restaurant, and cost two francs a day. And thus she managed to keep within her allowance. I make these and the following statements on her own authority. As she found her woman's attire ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... "it's not so near London! But come in and have something, won't you?" And he held aside the reed portiere that screened ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... calls for the slamming of a door, and later the opening of the direct and intimate door of the apartment with a latch-key. Left of centre is a sofa, and there is a general arrangement of chairs without over-crowding the apartment. Just below, where the right portiere is hung, is a long, full-length mirror, such as women dress by. Against wall ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter
... right doctor, I've practiced for thirty years among Endbury ladies. They can't spring anything new on me. I've taken your mother through doily fever induced by the change from tablecloths to bare tops, through portiere inflammation, through afternoon tea distemper, through art-nouveau prostration and mission furniture palsy, not to speak of a horrible attack of acute insanity over the necessity of having her maids wear caps. ...
— Quit Your Worrying! • George Wharton James
... had been a gift of Silvia's. Evidently it had been a fancy of Mrs. Bell's to set the chair for the child before she opened the fatal box, and Carroll had kept both chairs in their relative positions. The doorway into the alcove bedroom was concealed by a portiere. ...
— An American Suffragette • Isaac N. Stevens
... and there in the doorway, holding back the heavy portiere, stood Juliette, graceful, smiling, a little pale, this no doubt owing to the flickering ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... of qualities, my dear," laughed Mrs. Knapp. "Sit down, children. I must see to Mr. Carter, who is lost by the portiere and will never be discovered unless ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... portiere aside with a curved hand and gracefully separated fingers; it was a staccato movement, and her body followed it after an instant's poise of hesitation, head thrust a little forward, eyes inquiring, and a tentative smile, although she knew precisely who was there. You would have been aware at ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... at which Vivien Warren is seated. The walls are mainly covered with book-shelves well filled with consultative works on many diverse subjects. There is another series of shelves crowded with neat, green, tin boxes containing the papers of clients. A dark green-and-purple portiere partly conceals the entry into a washing place which is further fitted with a gas stove for cooking and cupboards for crockery and provisions. At the opposite end of the room is a door which opens into a small bedroom. The fireplace in the main room is fitted with the best and least smelly kind ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... bunch of white roses came from. He did not know that, on his birthday, his wife and daughter stood behind the portiere of the parlor, nor that they made the long journey every year to see him. The first few years the Captain's wife had had golden hair, but it had gradually turned gray, and now it was white, although she was still quite a young woman. Formerly she used to come alone, but for three ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various
... into the living room through an arch in which a portiere, made of small pieces of ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... handle was calculated to alarm the housebreaker. Maitland paused, deliberating another and better plan, having in mind a short passageway connecting library and smoking-room. In the library itself a heavy tapestry curtained its opening, while an equally heavy portiere took the place of a door at the other end. In the natural order of things a ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... the Duke of Vallombreuse bowed with studied deference and politeness to his noble guest, and lifting the heavy portiere of tapestry that hung over the door opening into his dressing-room, passed through it and vanished. But a very few moments had elapsed when the Chevalier de Vidalinc joined the marquis, and they ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... had portiere on the brain when I wrote you last? I thought I had just caught the disease. I am very fond of needle-work, but for years have nearly abandoned it, because I could not thread my needle. But the portiere is made with a large worsted needle and ...
— The Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss • George L. Prentiss
... wears an unusual aspect. Several people are gathered on the porch. Floyd hurries within, and goes straight through to the library, lifting the portiere. Dr. Radford is sitting by the window. Jasper Wilmarth is still in his chair, his head fallen over on the desk, pillowed by one arm. The swarthy face is now marble pale, the line of eyebrows blacker than ever, ...
— Floyd Grandon's Honor • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... it was in that room! Not a sound except a faint scrabbling noise now and then from the L behind the portiere,—where some very old reference books are kept,—and papa's pen scratching across the paper, and even that stopped presently, and he began to read a book that lay open beside him. As he sat there reading, with sheets upon sheets of the Fetich scattered all round him, I looked and ...
— We Ten - Or, The Story of the Roses • Lyda Farrington Kraus
... another smile to me. I looked at the faded damask curtains; at the mantelpiece with its gilded clock and two side-pieces, Louis Seize at his worst, considered good enough for a bedroom; at the drapings of the enormous bed; at the portiere covering the door of Sir Samuel's dressing-room; at the kaleidoscopic claret-and-blue figures on the carpet; in fact, at everything within reach of my eyes except ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... of security, encompasses one when ushered into a living room in which the door opens and closes! Who that has read Henry James's remarkable article on the vistas dear to the American hostess, our portiere-hung spaces, guiltless of doors and open to every draft, can fail to feel how much better our conversation might be were we not forever conscious that between our guests and the greedy ears of our servants there is nothing but a curtain! All that curtains ...
— The House in Good Taste • Elsie de Wolfe
... him not in the drawing-room, but in a little den on the right of the front door which was also alive with Miss Walbrook's modern personality. A gold-colored portiere from Albert Herter's looms screened them from the hall, and the chairs were covered with bits of Herter tapestry representing fruits. A cabinet of old white Bennington faience stood against a wall, which was further adorned with three or four etchings of Sears ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... not!" he shouted, shaking his fist at the empty air and squaring his shoulders as though he expected some ghostly enemy to materialize from behind a door or out of the folds of a portiere. ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... name she started violently. So long accustomed to associate it with one person, she forgot for the instant that another bore it now. As she rose, startled and expectant, through the portiere held back by the servant there entered a man whose sharp dissimilarity to the image in her mind made ...
— A Manifest Destiny • Julia Magruder
... etait repandu. Une nuit qu'il se rendait de Berkeley a Londres, sa voiture fut arretee par un seigneur de grande route qui, passant sa tete a la portiere, lui ...
— Collections and Recollections • George William Erskine Russell
... draw this portiere across the doorway, and no gentleman would think of entering," ...
— Our Young Folks at Home and Abroad • Various
... at the bottom. Before tying the last row of knots, slip a colored glass bead over each set of cords, then make the knot so as to hold the bead in place. These beads are an ornament, apart from giving weight to the portiere to make it hang well. Trim the fringe evenly, slip the portiere from the foundation holder, and it is ready ...
— Construction Work for Rural and Elementary Schools • Virginia McGaw
... and he heard them still, though muffled, for a moment or two after the boy had gone. Then it ceased abruptly, and a pause followed, at the end of which the page returned. Raising the portiere of blue and gold, he invited ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... have seen enter the private apartments of the Minister of State with such perfect tranquillity, trembled slightly as he raised the portiere that hid the open doorway of the studio. It was a magnificent sculptor's workroom, the rounded front being entirely of glass, with columns at either side: a large bay-window flooded with light and at that moment tinged with opal by the mist. More ornate than the majority of these workrooms, to ...
— The Nabob, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alphonse Daudet |
