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Coquette

verb
1.
Talk or behave amorously, without serious intentions.  Synonyms: butterfly, chat up, coquet, dally, flirt, mash, philander, romance.  "My husband never flirts with other women"






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"Coquette" Quotes from Famous Books



... of a number of goddesses of his youth. He mentions, in particular, one of the name of Lydia, who kept him often from "his dear mother and household," and who is probably represented by the princess of the same name in the Orlando, punished in the smoke of Tartarus for being a jilt and coquette.[6] His friend Bembo, afterwards the celebrated cardinal, recommended him to be blind to such little immaterial points as ladies' infidelities. But he is shocked at the advice. He was far more of Othello's opinion than Congreve's in such matters; and declared, that he would not have shared his ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt

... and a most accomplished coquette, the Marquise was recovering from a serious love-affair, when she summoned Balzac to afford her amusement and distraction. Delicate and fragile, her face was rather too long for perfect beauty, but there was something spiritual and ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars

... world? She was kind and insincere; she was gentle and she was cruel; she was generous and ungenerous; she was true as steel, and she was false as Judas—what would you?—she was a woman of the world, with several sweet natural impulses, and all a coquette's diplomacies. ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida

... to be remarked in the course of the tale, though, it is true, it grows confused towards the end, and touches the melodramatic in the same way as Nash's novel. Thus the above conversation is interrupted by the entrance of the coquette Emilia, long before loved by Peregrine who had vainly asked for her hand. "Peregrine would have answered, but a pluck by the sleeve obliged him to turn from Selinda to entertain a lady mask'd who had given him the nudg. He presently ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand

... to convince a woman, if she had overheard this speech, that Miss Sherwood's humility was not the calculated affectation of a coquette. Sometimes a man's unsuspicion is wiser, and Harkless knew that she was not flirting with him. In addition, he was not a fatuous man; he did not extend the implication of her words nearly so far as she ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... and enviously observed that the handsomest fireman on the road had conquered the mo&t outrageous little coquette between New York and Buffalo. As a matter of fact, she had loved him from the start; the others served as thorns with which she delightedly pricked his ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon

... and affections, and keep the life of the spirit dawdling round them. Then they withdraw. When physical passion is involved, there is a definite name for such behaviour—flirting—and if carried far enough it is punishable by law. But no law—not public opinion even—punishes those who coquette with friendship, though the dull ache that they inflict, the sense of misdirected effort and exhaustion, may be as intolerable. Was ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster

... that she demanded the love and loyalty of her betrayed lover to the bitter end, false and heartless though she had been. The coquette in her played with him even now in the midst of the bitter pain she must have known she was inflicting. No word of contrition spoke she, but took her deed as one of her prerogatives, just as she had always taken everything she chose. She did not even spare him the loving salutation that had ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... makes us feel hopeless of humanity, but with a kindly ridicule and gentle humor which takes speedy improvement for granted. To read Swift's brutal "Letters to a Young Lady," and then to read Addison's "Dissection of a Beau's Head" and his "Dissection of a Coquette's Heart," is to know at once the secret of the latter's more ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long

... eyes upon her. Was he mistaken? was this romantic girl only a little coquette playing her provincial airs on him? "You say he and your father didn't agree? That means, I suppose, that YOU and he agreed?—and that ...
— By Shore and Sedge • Bret Harte

... she is, without exception, the greatest coquette I ever came across. She always had crowds of admirers, many of whom she contrived to draw on until they came to 'the point,' and then laughed at them. By Jove she will make a fool of you, Everard, ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings

... seemed to be showing some new developments. One would have said that the instincts of the coquette, or at least of the city belle, were coming uppermost in her nature. Her little nervous attack passed away, and she gained strength and beauty every day. She was becoming conscious of her gifts of fascination, and ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various

... know you are quite justified in your notion of me," she said. "I have given you every reason to call me coquette, flirt, or anything of ...
— The Colonel of the Red Huzzars • John Reed Scott

... coquette. Thou hast a power over men which thou must use with discretion, my Eulogia. Tell thy beads three times a day and pray that thou ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... timid as she was, but armed with supernatural courage, got into her carriage at two in the afternoon to try for admittance to the boudoir of the famous coquette, who was never visible till that hour. Madame de Sommervieux had not yet seen any of the ancient and magnificent mansions of the Faubourg Saint-Germain. As she made her way through the stately corridors, the handsome staircases, the vast drawing-rooms—full ...
— At the Sign of the Cat and Racket • Honore de Balzac

... is indispensable for you to hasten to go and see her, in order to make her acquaintance. You have only to present yourself, and I assure you even if you were not sent by me, she would receive you with the greatest pleasure. For, between ourselves be it said, she is an elderly coquette, but she is good-natured and knows how to remember her old friends. You will have therefore to be amiable, insinuating, respectful, assiduous. You might even tell her that she is charming, and that one sees she has been very pretty; which is true. ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France

... "La Coquette Corrigee" had been selected for representation at the Theatre Francais solely because it was the piece in which Mademoiselle Contat shone most. Yet the notions propagated by the Queen's enemies coinciding in my mind with the name of the play, I thought the choice very ill-judged. ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... grand before, became the head of the Sphinx, encircled with a coronet of fire. She bestowed a look of rapturous gratitude on Staines, and then glided away, like the stately Juno, to admire herself in the nearest glass like any other coquette, black, brown, yellow, copper, ...
— A Simpleton • Charles Reade

... Allen distinguished out of the merry war in which they seemed engaged were spoken in the tone of pretty petulance such women use—a coquette's defence. ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland

... the grace of the lily That sways on its slender fair stem, My love with the bloom of the rosebud, White pearl in my life's diadem! You may call her coquette if it please you, Enchanting, if shy or if bold, Is my darling, my winsome wee lassie, Whose birthdays are three, ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various

... A coquette loves by calculation, Tattiana's love was quite sincere, A love which knew no limitation, Even as the love of children dear. She did not think "procrastination Enhances love in estimation And thus secures the prey we seek. His vanity first let us pique ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin

... all I am to get from you, after all? is that all the regard you have for me? very well, Annot—it is well at any rate we should understand each other. They were right, I find, when they told me that you were such a coquette, you would have a dozen ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... her lovely eyes. What a charming coquette she would make, if she were not so innocent. But the long fringe of lashes was beaded ...
— A Little Girl in Old Quebec • Amanda Millie Douglas

... the stairs to light it; then, pouching flint and tinder-box, I emerged upon the roof, to find myself face to face with a young girl I had never before seen—the Hon. Miss Grey, no doubt—and very dainty in her powder and one coquette patch that emphasized the slow color tinting ...
— The Reckoning • Robert W. Chambers

... and Vizard went on to explain, "That Lady Betty Gore is as heartless a coquette as any in the county; and don't you flirt with her, or ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade

... which she attributed to bashfulness, encouraged the shameless coquette to add: "Maybe you liked me better as Bud?" Jeff was scarlet as he replied: "I liked Bud first-rate, but Bud'll remember what I said about his sister." Then he quite spoiled the effect of this happy phrase by adding hurriedly: "Say, I'd just as lief you didn't ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell

... anger, menaces, and complaints from these little creatures was quite curious. "Oh! the wretch!" a cuckoo seemed to say; "what does he mean by coming here, showing us his ugly face?"—"Oh! the horror," cried a coquette of a tomtit, holding up her little claw.—"Helas! helas! our poor trees, our beautiful leaves, and our lovely greensward—see how he is cutting away—Oh! the wicked man! the destructive rascal!" ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle

... this as a coquette might have done. On the contrary, she remained silent, and I was aware that while she liked and respected me, she was not profoundly moved by this farewell call. Nevertheless I hoped, and in that hope I repeated, "You will write to me, ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland

... fortunate for her that the course of the love did not run smooth. Almost immediately on his return, he made acquaintance with the Lambs, and, as Mr. W. C. Hazlitt, his grandson and biographer, thinks, with Miss Stoddart, his future wife. Miss Stoddart, there is no doubt, was an elderly coquette, though perfectly "proper." Besides the "William" of her early correspondence with Mary Lamb, we hear of three or four other lovers of hers between 1803 and 1808, when she married Hazlitt. It so happens that one, ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury

... it used to be, and he neither sings nor draws any longer. But he secretly occupies himself with literature. He has written a little comedy in the style of a "proverb;" and—as every one who writes now constantly brings on the stage some real person or some actual fact—he has introduced a coquette into it, and he reads it confidentially to a few ladies who are very kind to him. But he has never married, although he has had many excellent opportunities for doing so. For that Varvara Pavlovna ...
— Liza - "A nest of nobles" • Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

... disordered by suspicion? They might be, but Mr. Hobhouse was prepared to stake his davy that they were real. And what then did they imply? Surely not that she suspected the truth. He could not read them into that. That she was simply a coquette and for want of more amusing game (such for instance as Mr. O'Brien) was prepared to have a little flirtation with his successor? This was, somehow or other, not a very agreeable solution, but I began to suspect it might be the true one. In any case she was a puzzling factor, and the best ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston

... I certainly did bestow a more than common attention upon my toilet that morning. The senhora was nothing to me. It is true she had, as she lately most candidly informed me, a score of admirers, among whom I was not even reckoned; she was evidently a coquette whose greatest pleasure was to sport and amuse herself with the passions she excited in others. And even if she were not,—if her heart were to be won to-morrow,—what claim, what right, had I to seek it? My affections were already pledged; promised, it is true, to one who gave nothing in ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... chosen chum of her brother's. He had shown unmistakable signs of affection for her, but had never spoken. He was a good fellow, according to common report, and she had a good deal of liking and respect for him, and a little pity, being a good girl, and no coquette. ...
— Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield - From "Schwartz" by David Christie Murray • David Christie Murray

... the state bedroom where the Countess lay. From the rumors that were current concerning this lady (monsieur, I should never end if I were to repeat all the tales that were told about her), I had imagined her a coquette. Imagine, then, that I had great difficulty in seeing her in the great bed where she was lying. To be sure, to light this enormous room, with old-fashioned heavy cornices, and so thick with dust that merely to see it was enough to make ...
— La Grande Breteche • Honore de Balzac

... turban! Surely not to gratify the Emperor of Russia, who is at war with the Turks!" "Rather, I think," replied the Queen, "to propitiate Rustan," rolling her large, full eyes toward the swarthy Mameluke behind his master's chair. She had the air, according to Napoleon's account, of an offended coquette. After the meal it was Murat who took the part filled the previous evening by the Emperor. "How does your Majesty pass the time at Memel?" "In reading." "What does your Majesty read?" "The history of the past." "But our own times afford ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... was a most desirable move. The soul of loyalty and square dealing himself, Ray had never for a moment dreamed that anything other than a foolish escapade had occurred—a ride by moonlight, perhaps, demanded of her devotee by a thoughtless, thoroughbred coquette, whose influence over the young fellow was beginning to mar his usefulness, if not indeed his future prospects. Just what to think of Nanette Flower Ray really did not know. Marion, his beloved better half, was his unquestioned authority ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King

... and infatuation have a romantic origin. This old, shabby-looking object before me was at one time a well-to-do planter, and held a high position among merchants. One fatal day he became enamoured of a creole coquette, who cruelly jilted him. The disappointment turned his brain. People attributed his harmless insanity to eccentricity, and merchants transacted business with him as of old, till one heartless scoundrel, ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman

... eagerly, "You may hear them speak of me in Casterbridge as time goes on. If they tell you I'm a coquette, which some may, because of the incidents of my life, don't believe it, ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy

... which it usually cast off its favourites. Her mother was Suzanne Curchod, the first love of Gibbon, a woman of a delicate beauty, of very considerable mental and social faculties, a kind of puritanical coquette, but devoted to her (by all accounts not particularly interesting) husband. Indeed, mother and daughter are said to have been from a very early period jealous of each other in relation to Necker. Germaine, as she was generally called, had, unluckily for her, ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael

... amusing to see the efforts of pretenders, and the expression put on, whilst overwhelming the lady with amiabilities when her thoughts and perhaps her glances lie in another direction. She in turn may be obliged to use all her power to attract the one she desires to select. If she be a coquette, each one of many will think that he himself is the fortunate swain on whom her choice will fall. The doubts existing in these instances cause great excitement and amusement, and between the meetings pearls against rubies, diamonds against diamonds, ...
— Another World - Fragments from the Star City of Montalluyah • Benjamin Lumley (AKA Hermes)

... "Same old coquette—same old eternal feminine," he said, half sadly. "You know when you look stunning.... But, Carley, the cut of that—or rather the abbreviation of it—inclines me to think that style for women's clothes has not changed ...
— The Call of the Canyon • Zane Grey

... we especially refer at the present writing, was a coquette of the first class, beautiful in the extreme, and richly meriting the name that her owners had placed in golden letters on her stern—the "Sea Witch." She was one of that class of vessels known as flat upon the floor, a model that caused her to draw but little water, ...
— The Sea-Witch - or, The African Quadroon A Story of the Slave Coast • Maturin Murray

... now into tradition, that her lover had been killed in a duel, fought for her while she was still a girl, and that she had worn only white or black since that day—she who was now well over eighty. She had known love; a man had died for her; it was said that she had been a famous coquette in the 'thirties; and now she stood there, grotesque and sexless, with her eyes empty of dreams and of memories, and her face as gray and sinister as the ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... are liable to) their Writings wou'd probably be as useful in forming the Manners as Comedy, because they wou'd render Romances the Picture of Human Life. A covetous Man will therein find himself painted in such natural Colours; a Coquette will therein see her Picture so resembling her, that their Reflection upon reading the Character will be more useful to them than the long-winded Exhortations of a Fryar, who makes himself hoarse with Exclamation, and often tires out the Patience of ...
— Prefaces to Fiction • Various

... I should fear her anger, if she knew what I say! She is the most terrible coquette in the city—worshipped by the men, and hated, of course, by the women, who all imitate her in dress and style as much as they possibly can, because they see it takes! But every woman fears for either husband or lover when Angelique ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby

... was the pioneer, champion, incomparable coquette of the ancient world, and as such deserves ...
— Fair to Look Upon • Mary Belle Freeley

... cold coquette, who can't say "No." And won't say "Yes," and keeps you on and off-ing On a lee-shore, till it begins to blow, Then sees your heart wrecked, with an inward scoffing. Don Juan, Canto XII. ...
— The World's Best Poetry — Volume 10 • Various

... told her his vows were plighted to another. She cared nothing for that. Her life had been one long series of conquests, until now at twenty-five there was not in the whole world a more finished or heartless coquette than Evren Herndon. ...
— The English Orphans • Mary Jane Holmes

... terms and in familiar and social intercourse; Montaigne, Brantome, and other great writers dedicated their works to her. She also directed a select few, an academy, to instruct and distract herself. It is said that every coquette, every bourgeois woman, and almost every court lady endeavored to imitate her. When she died, at the age of sixty-two, poets and preachers sang and chanted her merits, and all the poor wept over their loss; she was called the queen of the indigent. Richelieu mentioned her devotion to the state, ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme

... him. His impassioned pleading had touched her heart. At a time when she was crying out for something to satisfy her need, in an unguarded moment, she had mistaken an awakened, fleeting impression for love, and passed what was now in her eyes an irrevocable word. She was no coquette, who gives a promise the one day to be carelessly withdrawn the next. George Fordyce had been fortunate in gaining the promise of a woman whose word was as her bond. There are circumstances in which even such a bond may become ...
— The Guinea Stamp - A Tale of Modern Glasgow • Annie S. Swan

... thunderstruck; here was a blow to her happiness, how completely was she caught in her own toils; she could but feel the retribution just. Of all men, she knew, George Graham to be one of the most fastidious, and that of all things he held the most despicable, she well knew, was a coquette. She loved him with passionate devotion, but knew, if the effort cost him his life, he would cast her from his affections. She was almost maddened with the thought. She did indeed feel that Mr. Barclay was amply ...
— A Book For The Young • Sarah French

... Shadwell; upon whose northern dedications, inscribed to the duke and his lady, our author is particularly severe. In the preface to the "Evening's Love," Dryden anxiously justifies himself from the charge of encouraging libertinism, by crownings rake and coquette with success. But after he has arrayed all the authority of the ancient and modern poets, and has pleaded that these licentious characters are only made happy after being reclaimed in the last scene, we may ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... for Serafina held beauty to be a precious gem that should be richly set in gold—the gem was hers, but the golden setting was lamentably wanting, and poor de Sigognac could not possibly furnish it. So the accomplished coquette decided not to interfere with this newly-born love affair, which was "all very well for a simple-minded young girl like Isabelle," she said to herself, with a disdainful smile and ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier

... first whom he attacked: she was one of the Handsomest women in town, though then little known at court: so much of the coquette as to discourage no one; and so great was her desire of appearing magnificently, that she was ambitious to vie with those of the greatest fortunes, though unable to support the expense. All this suited the Chevalier ...
— The Memoirs of Count Grammont, Complete • Anthony Hamilton

... meddle would be indiscreet, Replied the king, more charms we often meet, Beneath a chambermaid or laundress' dress, Than any rich coquette can well possess. Besides, with those, less form is oft requir'd, While dames of quality must be admir'd; Their whims complied with, though suspicions rise; And ev'ry hour produces fresh surprise, But this sweet charmer of inferior birth A treasure proves; a source of bliss on earth. No trouble ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine

... spots! It may be objected to Robin that he is noisy and demonstrative; he hurries away or rises to a branch with an angry note, and flirts his wings in ill-bred suspicion. The Mavis, or Red Thrush, sneaks and skulks like a culprit, hiding in the densest Alders; the Cat-Bird is a coquette and a flirt, as well as a sort of female Paul Pry; and the Chewink shows his inhospitality by espying your movements like a Japanese. The Wood-Thrush has none of these under-bred traits. He regards me unsuspiciously, or avoids me with a noble reserve,—or, if I am quiet and incurious, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... trench, which works very well with the bridge, and at the end of which is a finer fair ground. A street well paved, well built, well washed, as clean as a glass, populous, silent at certain times, a coquette with a sweet nightcap on its pretty blue tiles—to be short, it is the street where I was born; it is the queen of streets, always between the earth and sky; a street with a fountain; a street which lacks nothing to be celebrated among streets; and, in fact, it is the real street, the ...
— Droll Stories, Complete - Collected From The Abbeys Of Touraine • Honore de Balzac

... what he was, a loyal and chivalrous gentleman thus beguiled, burned her with a withering and intolerable shame. Simultaneously she felt her heart go out to him as never yet had it gone to any man, and in that secret shock to her maidenhood, the coquette in her waned ...
— The Clarion • Samuel Hopkins Adams

... maid is no coquette, Nor joys to see a lover tremble, And if she love, or if she hate, Alike she knows not to dissemble. Her heart can ne'er be bought or sold— Howe'er it beats, it beats sincerely; And, though it will not bend to gold, 'Twill love you ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron

... the evening at her crayons. In Rome, with her youth, beauty, fascinating manners, and varied reading, she gained a wide circle of friends. Her face was a Greek oval, her complexion fresh and clear, her eyes deep blue, her mouth pretty and always smiling. She was accused of being a coquette, ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... more to him than any other, but he thought it, and the thought aroused in his mind a series of new ideas. As Reine had so readily granted this first favor, was she not tacitly encouraging him to ask for others? Was he dealing with a simple, innocent girl, or a village coquette, accustomed to be courted? And on this last supposition should he not pass for a simpleton in the eyes of this experienced girl, if he kept himself at too great a distance. He remembered the advice of Claudet concerning the method of conducting ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet

... was evident that Mr. Stryker's admiration had very much increased since they had been together at the Springs. He had set out for Saratoga, with the firm determination to play the suitor to Elinor; he resolved that he would not fall in love with the pretty widow; but a clever coquette and a man of the world, are adversaries well matched; and, as usual in such encounters, feminine art and feminine flattery seemed likely to carry the day. Mr. Stryker, in spite of himself, often forgot to be properly attentive ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... unequal, flat, or pointed mountain summits, which glistened in the sun; the Mischabel with its two peaks, the huge group of the Weisshorn, the heavy Brunegghorn, the lofty and formidable pyramid of Mount Cervin, that slayer of men, and the Dent-Blanche, that monstrous coquette. ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant

... A more brilliant young coquette than Miss Newcome, in her second season, these eyes never looked upon, that is the truth. In her first year, being engaged to Lord Kew, she was perhaps a little more reserved and quiet. Besides, her mother went out with her that first season, to whom Miss Newcome except for ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... The "Coquette" was followed by the "Basket," and then by "Malbrook," and lastly by the "Fire Brigade," ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... announces Colonel Haughton. Madame arises, apologising for her recumbent position, but not before her future husband has had time to admire her foot, ankle and shapely arms, for, though her love is not for him, he is a man and she an inbred coquette, and as a man he admires her; he has loved but once the fair-haired Alice Esmondet, who chilled his heart by her refusal, he tells himself she is always so calm and freezing she could never love and so he goes to his fate who meets him all smiles ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny

... and fearing for her the fate of his young wife, who had been snatched from his arms by that terrible disease, consumption, had sent her to live at a farm-house near Chene-Populeux. The little maid was not nine years old, and already she was a consummate actress—a perfect type of the village coquette, queening it over her playmates, tricked out in what old finery she could lay hands on, adorning herself with bracelets and tiaras made from the silver paper wrappings of the chocolate. She had not changed a bit when, later, at the age of ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola

... Was Phoebe a mere coquette pure et simple? As soon as she had got safe within these walls, she stooped down over the primroses to get rid of Martha, and then in the darkness had a cry, all by herself, on one side of the wall, while the young lover, with ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... the human race, Lack they the simple skill To settle such a will?' This said, he undertook himself The task of portioning the pelf; And straightway gave each maid the part The least according to her heart— The prim coquette, the drinking stuff, The drinker, then, the farms and cattle; And on the miser, rude and rough, The robes and lace did Aesop settle; For thus, he said, 'an early date Would see the sisters alienate Their several shares of the estate. ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine

... away. Her movement first was to go to the table and take off her bonnet and lay down her shawl and right herself a little. Yet Prim was nothing of a coquette, not the least in the world, and never thought about her dress but to have it respectable. Neither did she think about it now; for there was no glass in the room, and the movement with which she pushed the hair further back from her brow assuredly had no origin in ...
— The Gold of Chickaree • Susan Warner

... troth to him, and had broken it for three million pounds. Why not? She was a woman, she was beautiful, she was a siren who had lured him and used him and tossed him by. Why not? All her art was now used, the art of the born coquette which had been exquisitely cultivated since she was a child, to bring him back to her feet—to the feet of the wife of Rudyard Byng. Why not? For an instant he had the dark impulse to treat her as she deserved, and take a kiss "as long as my exile, as sweet as my revenge"; but then the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... the vain coquette what she For men's adoration would; Or from censure to be free, ...
— Miscellanies, Volume 2 (from Works, Volume 12) • Henry Fielding

... who are more or less rewarded, employ all the allurements of luxury, wit, and beauty, but who have not a particle of either imagination or heart, although they fascinate by a display of the most refined fancies and the most vivid emotions. I led the life of a slave to the caprices of this soulless coquette for nearly six months, and learned that women of the fashionable world and women of "the half- world" are very much alike in point of worth. The former are intolerable on account of their lies, their assumption, and their vanity; the others are equally odious by reason of their vulgarity, ...
— Stories of Modern French Novels • Julian Hawthorne

... sayings had brought back Theodora's affection and sense of right. She longed to recall her glance. If it had taken effect she must persevere. She could not endure the humiliation of having a third time trifled with a lover; she would not feel herself sunk into a mere coquette. But what ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fat. Take Cleopatra now, the lady to whom Marc Antony said: "I am dying, Egypt, dying," and then refrained from doing so for about nineteen more stanzas. Cleo or Pat—she was known by both names, I hear—did fairly well as a queen, as a coquette and as a promoter of excursions on the river—until she fleshened up. Then she flivvered. Doctor Johnson was a fat man and he suffered from prickly heat, and from Boswell, and from the fact that he couldn't eat without spilling ...
— Cobb's Anatomy • Irvin S. Cobb

... her as a gay, light-hearted butterfly girl, who was a coquette, but who stopped short of a real flirtation; the women gave her such commendation as is rarely given them to their own sex, and declared that Miss Van Allen was a simple, kindly, generous nature without a trace of ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells

... her, the more odious the situation was to him. That any rational being should have even the shred of an excuse for regarding her as the political coquette, using her beauty for a personal end, struck him as a kind of sacrilege, and made him rage inwardly. Nevertheless, the idea struck him—struck and kindled him all at once that the very perfectness of this tie that bound them together weakened her somewhat as a woman in her dealing ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Now all the coquette in Nelly O'Neill rose to detain him, subtly tangled with the actress. She pouted adorably. "Oh, now you're here, can't you put her second ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill

... setting. The crest, which was constantly spread out, appeared very like that of a peacock's tail, though, as Ellen observed, it would be a very little peacock to have such a tail. On searching in our book, we found that the first of these humming-birds we had remarked was a tufted coquette (Lophornis ornatus), while the other, which we seldom saw afterwards, was the spangled coquette. These birds, with several others of similar habits and formation, are classed separately from the Trochilidae, and belong to the genus Phaethornis. They are remarkable for the long pointed ...
— On the Banks of the Amazon • W.H.G. Kingston

... every gesture, the intonations of her voice, the turn of her head, her bubbling brilliance, her cool indifference, the ice of her intellect, the glow of her sympathy, each contributing to the masterpiece of her coquetry. But with him she was not even a coquette—jerky, passionate, nervous, humble, exacting, ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco

... unceasingly—Ruit Hora. Who was the artist who had contrived for his Hippolyta so superb and bold a fantasy of Death, at a period too when the masters of enamelling had been wont to ornament with tender idylls the little watches destined to warn Coquette of the time of the rendezvous in the parks of Watteau? The modelling gave evidence of a masterly hand—vigorous and full of admirable style; altogether it was worthy of a fifteenth century artist as forcible ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio

... is a 'dark horse.' You don't suppose he would waste so much of his valuable time if he did not hope to get some entertainment out of Mrs. Meredith? She is such a coquette." ...
— Banked Fires • E. W. (Ethel Winifred) Savi

... fail to attract the attention of the artists present, and as day after day went by, flattering remarks and undisguised admiration did not fail to strike home; attentions from the "gentry" were grateful to one who was a born coquette, and Eily's ...
— The Empire Annual for Girls, 1911 • Various

... moved into their new and splendid villa at Newport, Clement was invited to spend a few weeks with them—an invitation which he readily accepted. A few days after his arrival, Mrs. Archer, who was a pretty, lively little coquette, not in the least sobered by some thirteen years of married life, offered to drive him out in her little phaeton. "John has just given me a new pair of ponies," she said—"such perfect beauties and ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... guardianship of the girl, sent her to school in France, finally brought her to Rome, and established her in an apartment on the Trinita de' Monti, under the care of an old aunt, poor as herself, and once a great coquette, but now a faded rose which has long since ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine

... of his own feelings. There was now a rival in the field, and one by no means to be despised; but, although young de Vaux was good-looking, agreeable, and very much in love, Jane did not seem disposed to smile upon him. To do her justice, she was no coquette; she was too indolent by nature, to labour very hard to secure several conquests at the same time. Miss Graham was very much admired, however, and was generally proclaimed the beauty of the season; while Harry soon began to feel the vanity of ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... has played on the wide stage of contemporary history, to clutch vainly after the fleeting shadow of her vanished charms. A head loaded with false yellow hair, a face covered with paint and powder, a mincing gait and the airs and graces of an antiquated coquette,—such to-day is she who was once the world's wonder for her loveliness and grace, a bewigged Mrs. Skewton succeeding to the dazzling vision that swerved the calculating policy of Napoleon III. and won his callous heart, and ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various

... poor welcome truly!—just an open door, a clean-swept floor, and a fire to warm your rain-sodden limbs! The household asleep, and the house-place swarming with the ghosts of ancient times,—the miser, the spendthrift, the profligate, the coquette,—for the good ghosts sleep, and are troubled with no waking like yours! Not one man, sleepless like yourselves, to question you, and be answered after the fashion of ...
— The Portent & Other Stories • George MacDonald

... where beauty is recognized by the standard of regular features, clear skin, white teeth, and a perfect form. Her eyes, too, were large, black, and lustrous, and she understood the use of them as well as the most arrant Spanish coquette that ever lived. ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... the charm is a matter of sex, after all: towns are feminine, in the wise French idiom, that idiom so delicate in discerning qualities of sex in inanimate objects, as the Greeks before them were clever in discovering sex distinctions in the moral qualities. Trouville was so true a woman, that the coquette in her was alive and breathing even in this her moment of suspended animation. The closed blinds and iron shutters appeared to be winking at us, slyly, as if warning us not to believe in this nightmare of ...
— In and Out of Three Normady Inns • Anna Bowman Dodd

... coverlet of the wide bed is smooth and cold. Above, in the firelight, winks the coronet of tarnished gold. The knight shivers in his coat of fur, and holds out his hands to the withering flame. She is always the same, a sweet coquette. He ...
— Sword Blades and Poppy Seed • Amy Lowell

... summits, which glistened in the sun; the Mischabel with its two peaks, the huge group of the Weisshorn, the heavy Brunegghorn, the lofty and formidable pyramid of Mont Cervin, that slayer of men, and the Dent-Blanche, that terrible coquette. ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant

... girl, Fifine Dechaussee, would lead him on, if she had less of the saint and more of the coquette in her make-up, we might land him," the detective murmured to himself. "It's dirty work, but we've got to use the weapons in our hands. I must have another talk with her, before she considers herself affronted by his attentions, ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... her history the reader is already acquainted. Early orphaned, she was thrown upon the care of an old aunt who, proud of her wondrous beauty, spared no pains to make her what nature seemed to will that she should be, a coquette and a belle. At seventeen we find her a schoolgirl in New Haven, where she turned the heads of all the college boys, and then murmured because one, a dark-eyed youth of twenty, withheld from her the homage she claimed as her just ...
— Cousin Maude • Mary J. Holmes

... girl, Blanche was nature's self, warm, gentle, confiding,—as an unmarried woman, she was a heartless coquette,—as a matron, an exemplary mother and an affectionate wife. During the time Delancey was abroad, he heard of Blanche but seldom, for the lovers were not of that age in which a correspondence would be tolerated by Blanche's family. She once managed to send him, by the hands of a young cousin, ...
— A Love Story • A Bushman

... left to tell, A worn and withered old coquette, Dreams sadly that she draws us yet, With antiquated charm ...
— The Worshipper of the Image • Richard Le Gallienne

... worker in the vineyard of music or the drama offers his choicest tokay to the public, that fickle coquette may turn to the more ordinary and less succulent concord. And the worker and the public itself ...
— The Fifth String, The Conspirators • John Philip Sousa

... friendliness. There! God bless you for your patient kindness; I will not trespass on it longer. You have the best and kindest heart of any woman in the world. Why don't you exult a little over your conquest? It's complete enough to satisfy the most insatiable coquette. Don't look so sad. I'll be your merry-hearted friend ...
— A Day Of Fate • E. P. Roe

... above implements and wiles failed to entrap a lover, and the coquette was left as a "wall-flower," as the Germans express it, the men of the day satirized the unfortunate one just as mercilessly. Read, for example, a few lines from the Progress of Dullness, thought to be a very humorous poem ...
— Woman's Life in Colonial Days • Carl Holliday

... assured that those who were seated around the walls did not permit the time to pass without improving it. Many an attachment is formed at such amusements, and many a bitter jealousy is excited: the prude and coquette, the fop and rustic Lothario, stand out here as prominently to the eye of him who is acquainted with human nature, as they do in similar assemblies among the great: perhaps more so, as there is less art, and a more limited knowledge of intrigue, ...
— The Hedge School; The Midnight Mass; The Donagh • William Carleton

... of hers had been fixed very steadily upon me all through this outburst; as I finished they filled with tears, and my poor love sat wringing her slender fingers, and upbraiding herself as though she were the most heartless coquette in the country. ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung

... vos vertus, non, malgre vos appas, Mon ame n'est point satisfaite; Non, vous n'etes qu'une coquette, Qui subjuguez les coeurs, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... said, "Man had given him oil to make his face to shine." They then dress one another's hair, which usually occupies them all the morning. The toilette here, as with us, is a very serious affair. These sable beauties sometimes play the coquette with me, which is innocent enough. I asked my old negress about these and other coloured residents, and found there were many families of free negroes in Ghat. My friendly coquetting neighbours have a brother who is a free Negro and trades between ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson

... intuition she saw his meaning, but did not choose to dispel his suspicions just then. Not that she was a coquette or flirt, for she loved this man with all the strength of her being; but, on the other hand, she knew, or thought she knew, his disposition only too well, and she feared to yield to her natural inclinations, which ...
— Adrien Leroy • Charles Garvice

... know how many men will be made wretched when I get married," said the languishing coquette to her most ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous

... at lock-up, and introduced the boys to his wife and daughter. Mrs. Warde had a plain, pleasant face. Miss Warde, however, was a beauty, and she knew it, the coquette, and had known it from the hour she could peep into a mirror. The Caterpillar pronounced her "fetching." Being only fifteen, she wore her hair in a plait tied by a huge bow, and the hem of her skirt barely touched the neatest ankle on Harrow Hill. Give her a saucy, pink-and-white ...
— The Hill - A Romance of Friendship • Horace Annesley Vachell

... to the picnic, because he had met and thought her dangerous. It was not that she had tried to flirt with him, although she had done so; he felt that if he had played up, it might have been difficult afterwards to let the matter drop. Sadie was not a silly coquette. She had a calculating bent, ambition, and a resolute character. She would not flirt with anybody who was, so to speak, not worth ...
— The Girl From Keller's - Sadie's Conquest • Harold Bindloss

... a pained voice. "I cannot imagine why so many people should have thought that. Yes, and Richard himself. It never was; and I know I am no coquette!" ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston



Words linked to "Coquette" :   wanton, talk, woman, vamp, speak, adult female



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