"Tete-a-tete" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... visiting a man whom I knew so slightly. He opened the door himself, however, and greeted me with a great show of cordiality. I was handed over to the manservant, a melancholy, swarthy individual, who led the way, my bag in his hand, to my bedroom. The whole place was depressing. Our dinner was tete-a-tete, and though my host did his best to be entertaining, his thoughts seemed to continually wander, and he talked so vaguely and wildly that I could hardly understand him. He continually drummed his fingers on the table, gnawed his nails, and ...
— The Adventure of Wisteria Lodge • Arthur Conan Doyle
... alone with Sir Charles whenever he was at Pyrford. It was his "softer hour," and showed him in a specially endearing light. Not only was he fresh from his night's rest, full, often, of matter interesting or amusing in his letters which he had just read, but the tete-a-tete brought out his finest social nature. In large companies, as we saw him at Dockett, he was occasionally insistent, iterative, expressing himself, to use a term of his own, with a "fierceness" corresponding to the strength of his convictions. With me at ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... unanswered. But, as on the threshold he again turned to bow his farewell, his eyes met hers, and though their lips were dumb, they had perhaps told one another more in this single second than during the whole time of their long tete-a-tete. ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... Cherry, and all were sent off in sound condition. No catastrophe occurred; and the continual occupation and responsibility drove away all the low spirits that so often had tried the home-keeping girl. She did enjoy those tete-a-tete evenings, when Felix opened to her more than he had ever done before; and yet it was an immense relief to have the day fixed for Wilmet's return, and how much more to have her walking into the room with all the children clinging about her in incoherent ecstacy, which had not subsided enough ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... desire to affront her by taking Edward's part, could overcome her unwillingness to be in her company again. The consequence was, that Elinor set out by herself to pay a visit, for which no one could really have less inclination, and to run the risk of a tete-a-tete with a woman, whom neither of the others had so much reason ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... one hour. The fact is—there is no reason why there should be any concealment between relatives—that my poor dear wife is incredibly jealous. She hates that anyone—male or female—should for an instant come between us. Her ideal is a desert island and an eternal tete-a-tete. That gives you the clue to her actions, which are, I confess, upon this particular point, not very far removed from mania. Tell me that you will think ...
— Tales of Terror and Mystery • Arthur Conan Doyle
... good as her word. She knew nothing of the finesse of diplomacy in the manipulation of her company. Her method was straightforward dragooning. Observing the persistent attempts of Dr. Bulling during the early part of the trip to secure Iola for a tete-a-tete, she called out across the deck in the ears of the whole company, "See here, Bulling, I won't have you trying to monopolise our star. We're out for a good time and we're going to have it. Miss Lane is not ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... to meet her, and her joy at meeting him easily betrayed itself in her eyes and her smile. And he did not refrain from actually making love to Anna on the occasions when they were able to engage in tete-a-tete conversations. Nor was he positively repelled. Soon the acquaintance became more and more intimate. Meantime, Aleksei as usual would come home and, instead of seeking his wife's society, would bury himself in his library amongst his books. But suddenly the idea that his wife could ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... are all here! Eet is a leetle public—eh! a leetle too much of a front seat for a tete-a-tete, my yonge friends," he said, glancing at the remains of Consuelo's bower, "but for the accounting of taste there is none. What will you? The meat of the one man shall envenom the meat of the other. But" (in a whisper ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... says he is the author of the distich, for there are extraordinary people in the world. My brother, in short, ought to have composed the distich, because he says so, and because he confided it to me tete-a-tete. I had, it is true, difficulty in believing him; but what is one to do? Either one must believe, or suppose him capable of telling a lie which could only be told by a fool; and that is impossible, for all Europe knows that my brother is not ...
— Figures of Several Centuries • Arthur Symons
... flew to Arkwright's face at sight of herself was construed at once by Alice as embarrassment on his part at being found tete-a-tete with Bertram Henshaw's wife. And she did not like it. She was not pleased that he was there. She was less pleased that ...
— Miss Billy Married • Eleanor H. Porter
... of eagerness and followed her, wondering if her intriguing sentence before breakfast had been nothing more than a clever piece of chicane, planned to entice me into a tete-a-tete. ...
— The Jervaise Comedy • J. D. Beresford
... with well-simulated excitement, was racing me in the car up to the Greenes' again. We literally burst unannounced into the tete-a-tete ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve
... she begged. "I warn you, no one is coming, but I think you had better meet Henry, and, to proceed to the more selfish part of it all, I rather dread a tete-a-tete dinner this evening. Will you be ...
— The Profiteers • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... lawyers or colder friends, who cannot enter into my feelings in regard to this place, or your own liberal and kindly feelings either. Let us settle it some day between ourselves," she added, with a light laugh, "in a tete-a-tete like this. I do not suppose you are afraid of being overreached by me in a bargain. But now let us turn our steps back towards the house, for I expect Mrs. Warmington early, and I must not be absent when ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... the conversation and secretly watching the girl keenly, studying her play of expression, seeking, according to his habit, to make his guarded estimate of a new factor in his household. From Virginia's face his eyes went swiftly now and then to his daughter's, animated in her tete-a-tete with the sheriff. Once, when Virginia turned unexpectedly, she caught the hint of a troubled ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... baroness and her brother might have been seen engaged in a tete-a-tete, seated in two comfortable armchairs, and anyone who was near enough might ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... my business. You are young, amiable, unconventional; you suit me and will save me from the tediousness of a tete-a-tete." ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... an engrossing tete-a-tete, for the call to supper had sounded twice before they heard and hurried into the house. The march had formed with Louise radiantly leading on the arm of papa. Claralie tripped by with Leon. Of course, nothing remained for Theophile ...
— The Goodness of St. Rocque and Other Stories • Alice Dunbar
... condition of life, nor condition of mind, to mingle as a friend with those of whose affairs I am about to treat so familiarly, being far too crotchety a fellow not to prefer a saunter with my fishing-tackle on my back, or an evening tete-a-tete with my library of quaint old books, to all the good men's feasts ever eaten at the cost of a formal country visit. Nevertheless, I am not so cold of heart as to be utterly devoid of interest in the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... hour very solitary, and the bridegroom and his bride found themselves for the first time that day tete-a-tete. He turned to her, and drew her head to his heart ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... Arthur Ansard at a briefless table, tete-a-tete with his wig on a block. A. casts a disconsolate look upon ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... from the first, conceived a great antipathy to Rose, whom she considered a dangerous rival, and generally avoided, excepting when Mr. Dinsmore was with her; but she always interrupted a tete-a-tete between them when it was in her power to do so without being guilty of very great rudeness. This, and the covert sneers with which she often addressed Miss Allison had not escaped Mr. Dinsmore's ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... girl began to pour out the tea, but Jack remained in his seat by the window. It was a singular sensation which he did not care to disturb. It was no new thing for Mr. Hamlin to find himself at a tete-a-tete repast with the admiring and complaisant fair; there was a 'cabinet particulier' in a certain San Francisco restaurant which had listened to their various vanities and professions of undying faith; he might have recalled certain festal rendezvous with a widow ...
— A Protegee of Jack Hamlin's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... monopolizer you are of the attention of young gentlemen. First, you led Mr. Henry Huntington in a wild goose chase all around the island, and next, we find you holding a very confidential 'tete-a-tete' with young Mr. Arthur. Such proceedings are really too bad, and, as your watchful 'duenna,' I must enter my serious ...
— Blackbeard - Or, The Pirate of Roanoke. • B. Barker
... major," answered the well-known voice of the commandant. "I had no idea I was interrupting a tete-a-tete. In fact, I did not associate you with ...
— At War with Pontiac - The Totem of the Bear • Kirk Munroe and J. Finnemore
... assures me that no one but a book reviewer ever reads prefaces, so I seize upon the opportunity to have a tete-a-tete with my critics. Gentlemen, my cards are face up on the table. I have declared to the publisher that nearly every American who knows how to read longs to find his way into print, and should appreciate some of the dearly bought hints herein contained upon practical journalism. And, as I kept my ...
— If You Don't Write Fiction • Charles Phelps Cushing
... noble, that anything she might say would be inane, tawdry, inconsequent; so she waited, patiently happy, taking no count of time, nor the sunshine, nor the lilt of the birds, nor even the dissolution of conventionality in the unsupervised tete-a-tete. ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... late for that. The young man, at first almost as much startled as his companion at the uncanny apparition, naturally experienced a revulsion of indignation at such an extraordinary interruption to his tete-a-tete, and stepped up to Mr. Morgan as if about to inflict summary chastisement. But perceiving that he had to do with an elderly man, he contented himself with demanding in a decidedly aggressive tone what the devil he ...
— A Summer Evening's Dream - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... jealousy that might seek revenge. Yet he had no reason to believe that Susy's nature was jealous, or that she was likely to have any cause; but the fact remained that Miss Faulkner's innocent intrusion upon their tete-a-tete affected him more strongly than anything else in his interview with Susy. Once out of the atmosphere of that house, it struck him, too, that Miss Faulkner was almost as much of an alien in it as himself. He wondered what she had been doing there. Could it be possible that she was obtaining ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... said or did nothing in that tete-a-tete luncheon his wife might not have heard or seen, but the fact that he talked entirely about you and art, and other universal subjects, and seemingly avoided any reference to his wife ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... the Major and myself alone at the table. You must not suppose our tete-a-tete was long, but it was a lively period while it lasted. He drank like a fish or an Englishman; shouted, beat the table, roared out songs, quarrelled, made it up again, and at last tried to throw the dinner-plates through the window, a feat of which he was at ...
— St Ives • Robert Louis Stevenson
... entering her carriage; he could ride near the door of her coach; he accompanied her on water excursions and pleasure rides, and these last were so much the more important because they afforded him, to a certain extent, opportunity for a tete-a-tete with the queen. For only the master of horse was permitted to ride at her side; he even had precedence of the ladies of the suite, so as to be able to give the queen immediate assistance in case of any accident, or the stumbling of her ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... question at the next sitting. Now, it so happened that my wife had conceived, reasonably or unreasonably, doubts as to the medium's honesty in the matter, and she determined to try him in the matter of this unanswered question. Talking one day with him in tete-a-tete, she turned the subject of maladies of the chest, of which they had been speaking, to the special case of her late brother-in-law, discussing the powerful influence of climate, and remarking that she feared Ostend had been a very ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various
... played around her lips; and her magnificent hair was as dark as ebony and long enough to serve her as a mantle. Chopin and Maria saw each other every evening at the house of her uncle, the Palatine Wodzinski. The latter concluded from their frequent tete-a-tete at the piano and in corners that some love-making was going on between them. When he found that his monitory coughs and looks produced no effect on his niece, he warned his sister-in-law. She, however, took the matter ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... in a finer house than Littleton's, Lansdowne House excepted,—and perhaps Lord Milton's, which is also in Grosvenor Place. He gave me a dinner of dinners. I talked with Denison, and with nobody else. I have found out that the real use of conversational powers is to put them forth in tete-a-tete. A man is flattered by your talking your best to him alone. Ten to one he is piqued by your overpowering him before a company. Denison was agreeable enough. I heard only one word from Lord Plunket, ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... refuse her heart to a man who had possessed it in the past and had just made such a sacrifice to please her. She consented to accept his declaration and permitted him to believe that she was not unmoved by his passion. The arrival of the Duchess, her mother-in-law, put an end to this tete-a-tete, and prevented the Duc from ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... jolting their paradise in a posting-chaise, of breaking up their mystery with clic-clacs, of taking for a nuptial bed the bed of an inn, and of leaving behind them, in a commonplace chamber, at such a night, the most sacred of the souvenirs of life mingled pell-mell with the tete-a-tete of the conductor of the diligence and the maid-servant of ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... course of the following year, "Christopher North" made the following statement in Blackwood's Magazine in "An Hour's Tete-a-tete with the Public": ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... meeting to be one of the strangest experiences of her whole life. She had never seen a Chinaman before, except on the street carrying a basket of laundry. But here she was forced into a tete-a-tete with one ...
— The Automobile Girls At Washington • Laura Dent Crane
... midday sun by sloping roofs and awnings, and sheltered from the boisterous afternoon trade winds by the opposite side of the court. But Susy did not seem inclined to linger there long that morning, in spite of Mrs. Peyton's evident desire for a maternal tete-a-tete. The nervous preoccupation and capricious ennui of an indulged child showed in her pretty but discontented face, and knit her curved eyebrows, and Peyton saw a look of pain pass over his wife's face as the young girl suddenly and half-laughingly ...
— Susy, A Story of the Plains • Bret Harte
... escape the notice of the Cubans. Nor did the flag of Cuba Libre picked out in electric lights over the entrance of a restaurant near the theatre, nor other significant sights and sounds. But they warily held their peace. I looked for some show of feeling, but there was none. A tete-a-tete with Mercedes was out of the question, and for this I fervently thanked the gods! There was no telling the havoc that bewitching face might have wrought. Principles, opinions, and theories might have withered ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald
... witticism or bit of sarcasm at his own expense. I am sorry now that I did not urge him with more persistence, for he might have yielded in the end, and I would have got a more intime idea of his playing; for after all a musical tete-a-tete like that is preferable to any public hearing. I never heard Grieg play at a concert, but I am sure that the hour I sat near him in his Bergen home, while he played and his wife sang, gave me a better appreciation of his skill as an interpreter than I could have ...
— Edward MacDowell • Lawrence Gilman
... ball has gone off well?" she asked incredulously. "It seems to me to have been an elaborate failure." She was thinking of those two whom she had surprised tete-a-tete in the balcony, and wondering what George Fairfax could have been saying to produce Clarissa's confusion. Clarissa was her protegee, and she was responsible to her sister Geraldine for any mischief ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... eyes said nothing of the sort to Mr Slope. He had no objection at all to the tete-a-tete with the signora, which the departure of the other three would allow him, and gently whispered to her, 'I shall ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... Fibsy and Ruth were holding a tete-a-tete conversation. The kind-hearted woman had, doubtless, felt sorry for the boy's shyness, and had drawn him into chat to put him ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... street door is closed again, everyone thinking you are gone, go upstairs in the dark as far as the third floor, where you must wait for us. We will come up the moment M. Rosa has left the house, and our aunt has gone to bed. Angela will be at liberty to grant you throughout the night a tete-a-tete which, I trust, will prove a ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Ringdove, and Griffin became first of the Proserpine. This, of course, made Yelverton second, and left one vacancy. Thus far the orders had been made out, when Cuffe dined with the admiral, by invitation, tete-a-tete. ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... dreary. The cause may have been that the guest was handicapped by circumstances—to be good company without discarding the fatal air was extremely difficult; also the cause may have been that the daring spirits felt their courage forsake them in a tete-a-tete; but it is certain that once when Florozonde drove home in the small hours to the tattered aunt who lived on her, she exclaimed violently that, "All this silly fake was giving her the hump, and that she wished ...
— A Chair on The Boulevard • Leonard Merrick
... period of his past life? he replied, "It was that year in which he spent one whole evening with M—-y As—n. That, indeed," said he, "was not happiness, it was rapture; but the thoughts of it sweetened the whole year." I must add that the evening alluded to was not passed tete-a-tete, but in a select company, of which the present Lord Killmorey was one. "Molly," says Dr. Johnson, "was a beauty and a scholar, and a wit and a Whig; and she talked all in praise of liberty: and so I made this epigram upon ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... envy swell, Because they see me used so well: 'How think you of our friend the dean? I wonder what some people mean; My lord and he are grown so great, Always together, tete-a-tete: What, they admire him for his jokes— See but the fortune of some folks!' There flies about a strange report Of some express arrived at court; 110 I'm stopp'd by all the fools I meet, And catechised in every street. 'You, Mr Dean, frequent the great; Inform us, will the Emperor treat? Or do the ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... with the laurels of his fine victory, he is side by side with the lovely Alcmene enjoying the delights of a charming tete-a-tete. They are tasting the pleasures of being reconciled, now their love-tiff has blown over. Take care how you disturb their sweet privacy, unless you wish him to punish ...
— Amphitryon • Moliere
... between Mary Standish and John Graham's agent, Alan thought. There were not half a dozen people left at the tables, and the scheme was that Rossland should be served tete-a-tete with Miss Standish, of course. That, apparently, was why she had greeted him with such cool civility. Her anxiety for him to leave the table before Rossland appeared upon the scene was evident, now that he ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... received by Aunt Victoria with her best calm smile, and by Professor Saunders with open impatience. His equanimity was not restored by the fact that there chanced to be rather more general talk than usual that evening, leaving him but small opportunity for his tete-a-tete. ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... already sent a challenge, with his compliments, to Commodore Rodgers of the United States frigate President, saying that he would be very happy to meet him or any other American frigate of equal force, off Sandy Hook, "for the purpose of having a few minutes' tete-a-tete." It was therefore with the utmost willingness that the Constitution and the Guerriere hoisted their battle ensigns and approached each other warily for an hour while they played at long bowls, as was the custom, each hoping to disable ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... have no fear this time," said Lord Earle. "Your mother tells me of the numerous comments made last evening on your long tete-a-tete in the conservatory. I know some of your secrets. There can be no doubt that Miss Charteris has a great regard for you. I sent for you to say that, far from my again offering any opposition to your marriage, the dearest wish of my heart will ...
— Dora Thorne • Charlotte M. Braeme
... wore on, and still Theodora's fears kept her from allowing a tete-a-tete when he dismounted and ...
— Beyond The Rocks - A Love Story • Elinor Glyn
... then left tete-a-tete. He had on his face no appearance of disquietude or menace; decidedly he ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... obstinately in Maud Matchin's mind. She gave herself no rest from dwelling on them. Her imagination was full, day after day, of glowing pictures of herself and Farnham in tete-a-tete; she would seek in a thousand ways to tell her love—but she could never quite arrange her avowal in a satisfactory manner. Long before she came to the decisive words which were to kindle his heart to flame in ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... "Eight days' steady tete-a-tete," she wrote, "is enough, quite enough. Trust to the experience of an old countrywoman, who would be delighted to kiss her little nephew and niece. Don't eat all your love in the bud—keep a little for ...
— Parisian Points of View • Ludovic Halevy
... person to whom I was introduced scarcely bowed his head, and then remained silent some moments. I thought my reverend face had not pleased him, and felt an echo of cordial dislike in my heart. In a little while the person who had introduced me went away, leaving me tete-a-tete with my enemy. "Now," thought I, "I will burst before I will speak, a word to him." But my neighbor, after some minutes of silence, said to me with the greatest gravity, "I hope, if you have no other engagement to-day, you will do me the honor of dining with me." I fell ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... not presented even the picture called for by the German libretto. Nevertheless, morn is dawning, birds are twittering, and the young lover, kneeling before his mistress on a divan, is bemoaning the fact that day is come and that he cannot publish his happiness to the world. The tete-a-tete is interrupted by a rude boor of a nobleman, who come to consult his cousin (the princess) about a messenger to send with the conventional offering of a silver rose to the daughter of a vulgar plebeian just elevated ...
— A Second Book of Operas • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... what manner to address her whom he had been lately so anxious to meet with, and embarrassed by a TETE-A-TETE to which his own timid inexperience, gave some awkwardness, the party had proceeded more than a hundred yards before Darsie assumed courage to accost, or even to look at, his companion. Sensible, ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... of Southey's JOAN OF ARC. The lady Imogine, who has been, (as is the case, she tells us, with all soft and solemn spirits,) worshipping the moon on a terrace or rampart within view of the Castle, insists on having an interview with our hero, and this too tete-a-tete. Would the reader learn why and wherefore the confidante is excluded, who very properly remonstrates against such "conference, alone, at night, with one who bears such fearful form;" the reason follows—"why, therefore send him!" I say, follows, because the next line, "all things ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... but what was it to Perkins's? Fancy his blank surprise and rage at having his love thus suddenly ravished from him, and his delicious tete-a-tete interrupted. He managed, in an inconceivably short space of time, to conjure up half-a-million obstacles to his union. What should he do? he would rush on to Baker Street, and wait there until his Lucy left ...
— The Bedford-Row Conspiracy • William Makepeace Thackeray
... dinner-hour in hope that some traveler might come to the inn, with whom he could chat in the evening. On the days when his work was done early, he had, for want of something else to do, to come punctually, and endure from soup to cheese a tete-a-tete with Binet. It was therefore with delight that he accepted the landlady's suggestion that he should dine in company with the newcomers, and they passed into the large parlour where Madame Lefrancois, for the purpose of showing ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert
... into his hands, with sensitive upward glance, the receptacle containing her manuscript, and set a brisk pace, at which she insured the passing of the other guests along the road, making visible her triumph over circumstance and at the same time obviating untimely intrusion of a tete-a-tete conversation. ...
— Hepsey Burke • Frank Noyes Westcott
... together, dining tete-a-tete, on a night when it must have needed more than ordinary courage for either of them to have been seen in public ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... few of the radishes just to show that I was not abashed by her haughty, reproachful air. Other passengers were strolling in. Here was Mr. John Van Blarcom, who, at the sight of Miss Falconer and myself to all appearances cozily established for a tete-a-tete meal, stopped in his tracks and fastened on me the hard, appraising scrutiny that a policeman might turn on a hitherto respectable acquaintance discovered in converse with some notorious crook. For an instant he ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... in back view or noseless profile. But Mrs. East's principal occupation in life was not to get me engaged to the Gilded Rose. And either she lost her presence of mind, or else she was not so much enjoying her moonlight tete-a-tete with Fenton, that it was worth while to hide from us behind a ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... father'. Pretty nearly the same thing did he for Miss Martineau, as she has said somewhere. God knows I forget what the 'talk', table-talk was about—I think she must have told you the results of the whole day we spent tete-a-tete at Ascot, and that day's, the dinner-day's morning at Elstree and St. Albans. She is to give me advice about my worldly concerns, and not before ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... not escape the cunning eye of the master of ceremonies. "I must withdraw," thought he; "I will grant them a first tete-a-tete. I will observe them from a distance, and be able to decide if my plan will succeed." Excusing himself upon the plea of duty, Pollnitz withdrew; he glided into a window and concealed himself behind the curtains, in order to watch the countenances of his ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... be rude, raised a great hue and cry and everything changed. What she said of me I don't know but it made a most amusing difference. General Walker galloped a half mile across the desert to give me his own copy of the directions for the sham battle, and I was to have met Cromer at dinner tete-a-tete, and General Kitchener sent apologies by two other generals and all the subalterns called on me in a body. That was the day before I left. I don't know what Lady Gower-Browne said, but it made a change which ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... Ellie said, people didn't wait nowadays to announce their "engagements" till the tiresome divorce proceedings were over. Ellie herself, prodigally pearled and ermined, had floated in late with Algie Bockheimer in her wake, and sat, in conspicuous tete-a-tete, nodding and signalling her sympathy to Susy. Approval beamed from every eye: it was awfully exciting, they all seemed to say, seeing Susy Lansing pull it off! As the party, after dinner, drifted from the restaurant back into the ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... over the balcony, side by side, touching elbows, with their heads overhanging the darkness of the street, and the brilliantly lighted sala at their backs. This was a tete-a-tete of extreme impropriety; something of which in the whole extent of the Republic only the extraordinary Antonia could be capable—the poor, motherless girl, never accompanied, with a careless father, who had thought only of making her learned. ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... as plainly furnished as the one they had quitted, but in its shelves, cupboards, and closely fitting boarding bearing out the general nautical suggestion of the house—and seated themselves before a small table on which their frugal meal was spread. In this tete-a-tete position Jim suddenly laid down his knife and fork ...
— The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... think, in London. In Trinity Chapel is the monument of Eau de Cologne, just as it is now exhibiting at the Diarrhoea in the Regent's Park. It was late when we got to Dover. We walked about while our dinner was preparing, looking forward to our snug tete-a-tete of three. We went to look at the sea—so called, perhaps, from the uninterrupted view one has when upon it. It was very curious to see the locks to keep the water here, and the keys which are on each side of them, all ready, I suppose, ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... of her bigger sister across the border in more ways than one, he could not be expected to know that de Cartier loved not his wife and did love the pretty Louise. Nor could his pride have been convinced that the young woman at his side was enjoying the tete-a-tete chiefly because de Cartier was fiercely cursing the misfortune which had thrown this new element into conflict. It may be unnecessary to say that Mrs. Garrison was delighted with the unmistakable signs of admiration manifested by the ...
— Castle Craneycrow • George Barr McCutcheon
... the doings of a congener, when they do not come into collision with her own; even the everyday married lady bends her head confidentially towards her double, as they sit side by side, and rises from the tete-a-tete charmed and edified: the managing partner alone is solitary and unsocial. This is demanded by the lofty nature of her duties. Every business, great and small, should have a single head to direct; and she feels satisfied, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 462 - Volume 18, New Series, November 6, 1852 • Various
... at this time of day is hardly fitting for young ladies to take alone," said Mr. Lathom, anxious no doubt to escape from his tete-a-tete drive with my lady, and possibly not quite prepared to go to the illegal length of prompt measures, ...
— My Lady Ludlow • Elizabeth Gaskell
... at Fernley House; peace and cheerfulness, and much joy. It was not the same peace as of old, when Margaret and her uncle lived their quiet tete-a-tete life, and nothing came to break the even calm of the days. Very different was the life of to-day. The peace was spiritual purely, for the lively and varied round of daily life gave little time for repose and meditation, at ...
— Margaret Montfort • Laura E. Richards
... Mr. Softly Bishop gradually drew Ozzie into a technical tete-a-tete, Mr. Prohack understood further why Ozzie had been invited to the feast. Upon certain branches of Mr. Bishop's theatrical schemes Ozzie was an acknowledged expert, and Mr. Bishop was obtaining, for the price of a luncheon, the fruity knowledge and wisdom acquired ...
— Mr. Prohack • E. Arnold Bennett
... Hardy, "that the Pastor and Helga might come to us to-morrow, John, and that, as you are so impatient for a tete-a-tete interview with Helga, you can have a ramble in your woods at Rosendal, while I discuss the matters that have to be ...
— A Danish Parsonage • John Fulford Vicary
... this, I would go to the d—-l to serve YOU.' This speech I saw pleased my patron very much; and, as I was very discreet and useful in a thousand delicate ways to him, he soon came to have a sincere attachment for me. One day, or rather night, when he was tete-a-tete with the lady of the Tabaks Rath von Dose for instance, I—But there is no use in telling affairs which ...
— Barry Lyndon • William Makepeace Thackeray
... when she met him walking dejectedly in the road halfway between the two houses. So encouraged he extended his rambles, and one afternoon Amanda, looking out of her window, saw him stop at her gate and hold a tete-a-tete with one of her Plymouth Rock hens. The interview was brief but effective. In a twinkling he had told her of his miserable life and his abject ...
— Ladies-In-Waiting • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... doctor's and my dining tete-a-tete on a hastily improvised dinner,—it was then close upon eight, and our normal dinner hour is 6:30,—but it was such an improvised dinner as I am sure Mrs. McGurk never served him. Sallie, wishing to impress me with ...
— Dear Enemy • Jean Webster
... drawing-room but that of the ruddy blaze, and the tea-tray had not yet been brought up. When Lesley saw him she wished that she had sent down word that she was engaged, that she had a headache, or even that she was—conventionally—not at home. Anything rather than a tete-a-tete with Oliver Trent! And yet she would have ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... request, and putting her hand into the one extended to help her, jumped lightly down. It was a welcome means of according an innocent tete-a-tete to her devoted lover, and both felt as if they were treading on air, they were so happy to find themselves alone together, as, arm in arm, they walked briskly forward, until they were out of sight of their companions. Then they paused to look long and lovingly into each other's ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... he pleaded, "forgive me if for a moment I forgot how altered things are. Indeed, it was not a matter of choice with me. Of course, it will give me the greatest pleasure to dine tete-a-tete with you!" ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... road to Castel Casteggio, and asked him if he remembered coming up it with her to join the Newberry's ever so long ago. Whatever it was that Tom answered it is not recorded, but it is certain that it took so long in the saying that the Reverend Edward talked in tete-a-tete with Catherine for fifteen measured miles, and was unaware that it was more than five minutes. Among other things he said, and she agreed—or she said and he agreed—that for the new dances it was necessary to have always one ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... Tonight, instead of dropping to the back yard and shinning over the fences to safety, I took the fire escape up to the top flat—something a copper would never think of—and went through to the hall. Why? Why, to interrupt the tender tete-a-tete Maitland had planned. Why again? Because, for one thing, I've never yet been beaten at my own game; and I'm too old a dog to learn new tricks. Moreover, no man yet has ever laid hands on me in anger and not regretted ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... the ottoman, and would thus have secured a sort of tete-a-tete; but Eleonora did not choose to leave Mrs Miles Charnock out, and handed her each photograph in turn, but could only elicit a cold languid "Thank you." To Anne's untrained eye these triumphs of architecture were only so many dull representations of 'Roman Catholic churches,' ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... her own character, and sure, with her father to second her assurance, that boarding-school was the proper place to form it. Eddy was also at school, and Mrs. Upton, with the alternative of flight or an unbroken tete-a-tete with her husband before her, chose the former. There was no breach, no crash; any such disturbances had taken place long before; she simply slid away, and her prolonged absences seemed symbols of fundamental and long recognized divisions. She came home for the children's holidays; ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... restless in his presence, and was leading her to like better to have Marie or Aunt Hannah in the room when he called. She discovered, too, that she welcomed William, and even Bertram, with peculiar enthusiasm—if they happened to interrupt a tete-a-tete ...
— Miss Billy • Eleanor H. Porter
... of this, she was delighted. She had not seen the teacher more than to say "how-de-do" since their rather warm discussion before the date of the town meeting. Now she put herself in the way of meeting him where they might have a tete-a-tete. ...
— Janice Day at Poketown • Helen Beecher Long
... contented myself with assuring her that she was mistaken and had very much misunderstood me—took pains to repeat what I had really said, and then cut short an interview that had been painful and humbling to me on many grounds. I left the happy pair tete-a-tete, in their princely parlor together, little fancying that there was another argument which had been prepared to overthrow my feeble virtue. But all this had been arranged by the small cunning of this really witless couple. I was left to find my way down stairs ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... aunt thought proper under the circumstances; it was quite unembarrassed and natural, though, of course, there was more reserve than during the years they had lived so much together, almost as brother and sister. We are obliged to leave the ladies for the present, and follow Hazlehurst to his tete-a-tete dinner ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... spent hard at work with the cargo, bustling about with feverish energy as the afternoon wore on and left him to imagine his rival tete-a-tete with Annis. After tea a reaction set in, and, bit by bit the mate, by means of timely sympathy, learnt all that there was to know. Henry, without a display of anything, except, perhaps, silence, learnt ...
— The Skipper's Wooing, and The Brown Man's Servant • W. W. Jacobs
... promise never to ask you when I want to go ballooning; Arthur and I will go by ourselves. It would be a grand opportunity for a tete-a-tete. And now go and see about getting the things ready—there's a dear; and, Arthur, do you send John down to Miles' for ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... murmured, dropping her voice a little, and intimating by the slight movement of her head towards him, that their conversation was to become a tete-a-tete. "Well," she continued, "I suppose that life is that with all of us, only you see with us poor frivolous people, a search means nearly always the same thing—a search for amusement or distraction, whichever you choose to ...
— The Moving Finger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... mistress. It had not escaped Mrs. Rylands, however, who ever since Jack's abrupt departure had noticed this change in the girl's demeanor to herself, and with a woman's intuitive insight of another woman, had fathomed it. The comfortable tete-a-tete with Jack, which Jane had looked forward to, Mrs. Rylands had anticipated herself, and then sent him off! When Joshua thanked his wife for remembering the pepper-sauce, and Mrs. Rylands pathetically admitted her forgetfulness, the head-toss which Jane gave as she left the room ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... Indeed, historians concur in stating that to a brilliant understanding, he joined the most captivating person. We accordingly find that the Dutchess of Burgundy and several others were by no means cruel to him; and he had been supping tete-a-tete with Queen Isabeau de Baviere, when, in returning home, he was assassinated on the twenty-third of November 1407. His amorous intrigues at last proved fatal to the English, as you will learn from the following story, related ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... it just now, for I have broken up a charming tete-a-tete," said the king, bowing ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... do what he wanted and fulfilled her promise conscientiously. She began by having a tete-a-tete with Kollomietzev. What she said to him remains a secret, but he came to the table with the air of a man who had made up his mind to be discreet and submissive at all costs. This "resignation" gave his whole bearing a slight touch ...
— Virgin Soil • Ivan S. Turgenev
... nearly midnight. Half a dozen couples danced lazily in the central dancing space. Other couples remained tete-a-tete ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... barbarians - are all painful ingredients and all help to falsify relations. It is not till we get clear of that amusing artificial scene that genuine relations are founded, or ideas honestly compared. In the garden, on the road or the hillside, or TETE-A-TETE and apart from interruptions, occasions arise when we may learn much from any single woman; and nowhere more often than in married life. Marriage is one long conversation, chequered by disputes. The ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... He was at the back of the box, and clearly it was his benevolent desire to give me fair opportunity of a tete-a-tete with his dark and languorous lady. Unfortunately, I was quite unpractised in the art of maintaining a tete-a-tete with dark and languorous ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... so as not to interrupt his foreman's innocent tete-a-tete, but it was not very long after that Cota passed him on the highroad with the pinto horse in a gallop, and blew him an audacious kiss from the tips ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... interesting," said Mrs. Bazalgette, ironically. She thought David might employ a tete-a-tete with a flirt better than this. "What a ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... as scowling as she could have wished. While the officers were engaged in making their bow to the others, Constance casually reapproached the donkeys. Tony feigned immersion in the business of strapping hampers; he had no wish to be drawn into any Italian tete-a-tete. But to his relief she addressed him ...
— Jerry Junior • Jean Webster
... language embarrassed one who had been used to mariners' laconic directness of speech. She looked at him, teasing him with her eyes. He was a bit relieved when the pale-faced secretary came dragging himself up the ladder and broke in on the tete-a-tete. ...
— Blow The Man Down - A Romance Of The Coast - 1916 • Holman Day
... in this position out of mere good-nature. He had nothing to expect from joining our voyage, no advantage for his political ambitions or anything of the kind. I suppose you asked him on board to break our tete-a-tete which must ...
— The Rescue • Joseph Conrad
... once, when they had met at Newquay in Cornwall over a tete-a-tete lunch, he had said, in reply to her banter, that Louise was a darling! That he was awfully fond of her, that she had the most wonderful eyes, and that she was always alert and full of ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... nor third, Captain.—The truth is, I want a tete-a-tete with Mr. Mowbray of St. Ronan's," replied the Earl; "and, besides, I have to beg the very particular favour of you to go again to that fellow Martigny. It is time that he should produce his papers, if he ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... on the cards even that, having thus aroused his fears, his fair hostess should in deference to them offer him hospitality for the night, and he did not feel inclined for an indefinitely prolonged tete-a-tete. ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - LA CONSTANTIN—1660 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... Thornton fete, however, Price was able to dine at home. They met at table and he saw at once that she either had recovered her spirits or was making a deliberate attempt to create the impression of a carefree young woman happy in a tete-a-tete dinner with a ...
— The Avalanche • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... He did not belong to that chevalier and musketeer species, who take young girls by assault. In the matter of love, as in all other affairs, he willingly assented to temporizing and adjusting terms; and a good supper, and an amiable tete-a-tete appeared to him, especially when he was hungry, an excellent interlude between the prologue and the catastrophe of ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... now in the new Forty-second Street offices that commanded a view of two rivers and a vast battledoor and shuttlecock of the city, it was the first time in all those years that stretched from the night at the Waldorf that they had sat thus tete-a-tete. The day of the move she had ridden up from the old Union Square offices with him, a stack of files in her lap. Once, too, on a Saturday, the day of Zoe's invariable luncheon downtown and subsequent opera ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... duty without reward. The sick man tormented the poor creature, who was now doomed to learn what venomous and spiteful teasing a half-imbecile man, whom poverty had rendered craftily savage, could be capable of in the weary tete-a-tete of each endless day. Delighted to turn a sharpened arrow in the sensitive heart of the mother, he had, in a measure, studied the fears that Oscar's behavior and defects inspired in the poor woman. When a mother receives from her child a shock ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac
... begged her once more to be seated and to atone for all that was unkind in the past by letting me talk to her. There could have been no better place, outside of her cozy cabin, for this long-dreamed-of tete-a-tete, which now at last was to have a realization, than this she had herself chosen. The pile of pelts at her back kept off the east wind, the young moon in the west shone full upon her face, so that I could feast my eyes upon its glorious beauty (for the last time, I said to ...
— The Rose of Old St. Louis • Mary Dillon
... bit of mud on my shoes which would soil the polished floor; and I became keenly conscious that my trowsers were not perfectly pressed. I should, of course, have worn my tail-coat. There were several ladies there receiving guests that afternoon. I had a tete-a-tete with one of these, who gossiped pleasantly about the cakes—I was to get some cakes. The nicest cakes at the "Queen Elizabeth," it seems, are of two kinds: "Maids of Court" and "Ladies in Waiting." ...
— Walking-Stick Papers • Robert Cortes Holliday
... down to our tete-a-tete dinner. Such a dinner! Even after a lapse of all these years I am unable to think of it without a shudder. Half famished though we were, we could not do much more than look at the greater part of the dishes which were set before us; and the climax was reached ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various
... ribbon trainers. Thanks to Dick's carefully manipulated advertising campaign and personal efforts among his friends and business associates, they were not by any means the first arrivals. Half a dozen laughing groups were distributed about the round tables in the center space, while several tete-a-tete couples were confidentially ensconced in corners and at cozy tables for two, craftily sheltered by some of the most imposing of the ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... undertaking almost as hazardous as jumping a mining claim, but Calvin Gray succeeded and eventually he and "Bob" found themselves facing each other over a discolored tablecloth, reading a soiled menu card to a perspiring waiter. It was in some ways an ideal retreat for a tete-a-tete, for the bellowed orders, the rattle of crockery, the voice of the hungry food battlers, and the clash of their steel made intimate conversation easy. Gray noted with approval the ease with which his dainty companion adapted herself ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... joy, would fly to obey the royal mandate; and soon seated at the beauty's feet, in the glow of the warm wood fire and in the glory of her heavenly presence, he would lose himself in a delicious dream of love and music. No one ever interrupted their tete-a-tete. And Ishmael grew to feel that he belonged to his liege lady; that they were forever inseparate and inseparable. And thus his days passed in one delusive dream of bliss until the time came when he was ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... the white-and-gold restaurant at the Ritz on the following evening, Prince Shan and Immelan dined tete-a-tete, Immelan in the best of spirits, talking of the pleasant trifles of the world, drinking champagne and pointing out notabilities; Prince Shan, his features and expression unchanging, and his face as white as the perfectly fitting shirt ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the whisper of a tender declaration. Which among them has ever danced through a Mazourka, whose cheeks burned not more from the excitement of emotion than from mere physical fatigue? What unexpected and endearing ties have been formed in the long tete-a-tete, in the very midst of crowds, with the sounds of music, which generally recalled the name of some hero or some proud historical remembrance attached to the words, floating around, while thus the associations of love and heroism became ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... lighted and open windows, he saw Querida and Alice absorbed in a tete-a-tete, ensconced in a corner of the big living room; saw Gordon playing with Heinz, the dog—named Heinz because of the celebrated "57 varieties" of dog in his pedigree—saw Miss Aulne at solitaire, exchanging lively civilities with Sandy Cameron at the piano ...
— The Common Law • Robert W. Chambers
... Woodbine Villa, Mrs. Little and her brother dined tete-a-tete; and the first question she asked was, ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... I almost feel as if I were interrupting a tete-a-tete between yourself and some old flame. I haven't heard anything so old-fashioned and conservative as that sigh since I have been in California. I thought you never had any ...
— Snow-Bound at Eagle's • Bret Harte
... the hall was Mrs Gaskoin's boudoir, where she and her husband were sitting over the fire, awaiting the result of the tete-a-tete in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 452 - Volume 18, New Series, August 28, 1852 • Various
... hover over the new book counter and pull the books about, and make each other innumerable presents of daintily bound volumes, until the clerks grew to know them so well that they never went through the form of asking where the books were to be sent? And those tete-a-tete luncheons at her house when her mother was upstairs with a headache or a dressmaker, and the long rides and walks in the Park in the afternoon, and the rush down town to dress, only to return to dine with them, ten minutes late ...
— Gallegher and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... their cabin, and the men had not yet finished their evening's tobacco. The awning had been removed, the stars were shining in the moonless sky, the poop guard had shifted itself to the quarter-deck, and Miss Sarah Purfoy was walking up and down the deserted poop, in close tete-a-tete with no less a person than Captain Blunt himself. She had passed and repassed him twice silently, and at the third turn the big fellow, peering into the twilight ahead somewhat uneasily, obeyed the glitter of her great ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke
... this scene, which Europe related far more amusingly than it can be written, because she told it with much mimicry, Carlos and Lucien were breakfasting tete-a-tete. ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac
... frequently. He even ventured, every now and then, upon a smile. He talked for an instant, sometimes, upon the passing events of the day; and, once or twice, asked him to dine, when he and his son would otherwise have been tete-a-tete. All this was pleasant to Wilton; for Lord Sherbrooke managed it so well, by merely marking a particular preference for his society, that there was no restraint or force in the matter, and the change worked itself gradually without any words or remonstrance. In the midst of all this, however, ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... lost a hand; we lost a sailor. Bear a hand; make haste. Hand to fist; opposite: the same as tete-a-tete, or cheek ...
— 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue • Captain Grose et al.
... bells sounded he reluctantly went below for lunch. The prospect of a tete-a-tete with the captain was anything but pleasant. He understood about half that the officer said, and with that half he usually disagreed. His first ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice
... Their tete-a-tete was broken by Mrs. Shiffney's departure to a reception at the Ritz. She must surely have been disappointed in the musician; but, if so, she was too clever to show it. And she was by way of being a good-natured woman and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens
... piratical-looking pennon of audacity she had allowed to float a minute in the air, was furled, and the broad, sober-hued flag of dissimulation again hung low over the citadel. I did not like her thus, so I cut short the TETE-A-TETE and departed. ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell
... tried to avoid a tete-a-tete with Olga, and she took the first opportunity of introducing him to Elsa. She rebelled in her soul now at the thought of their marriage, but her will drove her to the fulfilment of her purpose, to that extent at least. ...
— The Devil - A Tragedy of the Heart and Conscience • Joseph O'Brien
... the Triumphs of Cally's Life, and the Tete-a-tete following, which vaguely depresses her; of the Little Work-Girl who brought the Note that Sunday, oddly remet at Gentlemen's ...
— V. V.'s Eyes • Henry Sydnor Harrison
... necessary for you to show your dislike to Dona Rosita quite so plainly," she said, coldly, slightly accenting the Puritan stiffness, which any conjugal tete-a-tete lately revived ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... imitate fashions, and get rid of provincial manners and prejudices. His friends never knew where he learned anything. When a Frenchman of title was basking in New York drawing-rooms it was found that Millard was equal to a tete-a-tete with the monolingual foreigner, though his accent was better than his vocabulary was copious. His various accomplishments of course represented many hours of toil, but it was toil of which his associates never heard. ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... the court my faithful hound Breaks rudely on our tete-a-tete; Too well I understand that sound! A ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... to the library. He knew the resources of his own mansion in the matter of nooks for a tete-a-tete interview; now he was particularly assisted by remembrance of Stewart's habits in the old days. He found his daughter and the mayor of Marion cozily ensconced among the cushions of ...
— All-Wool Morrison • Holman Day
... young lady, who expresses so much enthusiasm for your 'patria,' and who, moreover, tells you to your face that your countrymen are 'simpaticos.' There is no telling what conversation such topics might lead to, if Cachita's mamma, Dona Belen, did not interrupt our tete-a-tete by coming to inform her daughter that the ball is nearly over, and that it is time ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... slight acquaintance with the young beauty and her chaperon, found himself victimized by half a regiment at a time. Patsy soon had partners in plenty, and the Prince Eitel, who had looked forward to a pleasant tete-a-tete, retired to a corner from which he gloomed more and more murkily. He folded his arms and regarded the ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... me, and when they were seated my amazement grew again, for I saw that his companion was the girl Una—Una Habberton who had called herself Smith. Their appearance at this moment together found me at a loss to know what to do. To get up and join them would interfere with a tete-a-tete which, whatever its planning, I deemed most fortunate; to get up and leave the room without being observed would have been impossible, for Jerry faced the door. So I sat debating the matter, watching the face of the girl and listening ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs
... automobiles. The President walked over, accompanied by his military aid, Col. Harte, and the secret-service men. Before he left the White House he had stood for several minutes leaning over the side of the automobile having a tete-a-tete ...
— News Writing - The Gathering , Handling and Writing of News Stories • M. Lyle Spencer
... never passed the black altar without a backward glance, as if he were fearful of an attack from behind. And he had determined that nothing should tempt him to a tete-a-tete with the statue behind the veil. But having so senseless, so cowardly a feeling was one thing, and letting Mrs. Athelstone know it another. ...
— The False Gods • George Horace Lorimer
... provoking expressions, their immoderate laughter," is heard some distance off and they find it a convenient place: two steps aside, on the flank of the row, are "half open doors and dark alleys" which invite tete-a-tete; many of these women who have brought their mattresses "sleep there and commit untold abominations." What an example for the wives and daughters of steady workmen, for honest servants who hear and see! Men stop ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... the most finely chiselled mouth, most expressive of all his feelings; his lips parted in such loving admiration of his mother and closed so lovingly upon her own. After a profound bow to myself and a hearty grasp of the hand, he drew her to the crimson cushions of a tete-a-tete standing near, and passing his arm around her held her closely to him, as if afraid he would lose her. I envied her, and any heart might well envy the passionate devotion of a son ...
— The Harvest of Years • Martha Lewis Beckwith Ewell
... condescension to explain yourself. You are safe in my company now. Possibly I was mistook, but I supposed you not unwilling for our tete-a-tete. Accept my apologies if this is not the case. I thrust no attentions on women ...
— The Ladies - A Shining Constellation of Wit and Beauty • E. Barrington
... "But tete-a-tete. Send the guards to take their meal in the canteen of Monsieur de Chavigny; we'll have a ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... scrutiny, but Nigel spoke to him almost immediately, making some remark about the ship in English. The stranger answered in the same language, but with a strong foreign accent. He seemed quite willing to talk. He apologized for interrupting their tete-a-tete, but said he had no choice, as the saloon was completely full. They declared they were quite ready for company, Nigel with his usual sympathetic geniality, Mrs. Armine with a sort of graceful formality beneath which—or so her husband fancied—there was ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... in this respect. There is, however, of course much individual difference even with reference to this, and some take much more kindly and readily to cleanliness, no doubt to godliness too, than some others. I met Abraham, and thought that, in a quiet tete-a-tete, and with the pathetic consideration of my near departure to assist me, I could get him to confess the truth about the disappearance of the mutton; but he persisted in the legend of its departure through the locked door; and as I was only heaping sins ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... little hope of having a tete-a-tete with her, but as it fell out he did. They were all in the rectory garden together, Gerald and the rector a little behind Miss Gaylord and himself, as they strolled down a long walk with high hedges bordering it. On the other side of ...
— O Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1919 • Various
... considered to be, unable to walk or bear fatigue, she never appeared to be incommoded by the uproar in which she lived, and had even been seen careering about the nursery, or running about the garden, in a way that Grace and Rachel thought would tire a strong woman. As to a tete-a-tete with her, it was never secured by anything short of Rachel's strong will, for the children were always with her, and she went to bed, or at any rate to her own room, when they did, and she was so perfectly able to play and laugh with them that her cousins scarcely thought her sufficiently ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... came," he muttered, as soon as he was once more alone. "Wynston is provoking and fiery, too. Were I, in my present mood, to seek a tete-a-tete with him, who knows what might come of it? Blood; my own heart whispers—blood! ...
— The Evil Guest • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... Denham. "We are leaving Soeur Angelique and Miss Vernor to have a regular tete-a-tete of it, are we not? But you evade my question in a very unbecoming way, Miss Phebe. Tell me, what were you ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... their limits of entertainment. Then there is the awful possibility that the neighbors at table may have nothing to say to each other; and in the best-selected company one may sit beside a stupid man—that is, stupid for the purpose of a 'tete-a-tete'. But this is not the worst of it. No one can talk well without an audience; no one is stimulated to say bright things except by the attention and questioning and interest of other minds. There is little inspiration in side talk to one or two. Nobody ought to go to a dinner who is ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... that Marguerite might rest there, no longer visited it, fearing to find himself in the midst of a large and merry company, by whom he did not wish to be seen. This came about through his having once arrived to dine tete-a-tete with Marguerite, and having fallen upon a party of fifteen, who were still at lunch at an hour when he was prepared to sit down to dinner. He had unsuspectingly opened the dining-room door, and had been ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... cousin, perhaps? What was the matter with the devil, anyway? If he needed exercise why didn't he go and get it? Certainly I didn't want to spend an afternoon antiquarianizing with him. How was I to get him out of the way, so that I could get a tete-a-tete with K.? ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... Set, Brocatel, contains a handsome imitation Rosewood Piano, two Rocking Chairs, two Tete-a-tete's, six Chairs, and two ...
— Funny Alphabet - Uncle Franks' Series • Edward P. Cogger
... saw him an inmate of the house, as if no doubts had ever been cast on the legitimacy of their union. What thoughts passed through her mind during the long 'tete-a-tete'? She had accused this man of imposture, and now, notwithstanding her secret conviction, she was obliged to appear as if she had no suspicion, as if she had been mistaken, to humiliate herself before the impostor, and ask forgiveness for the insanity of her conduct; ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere |
