"Flirting" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (American synonyms: silk stockings, "wine," Maxim's, jevousaime, Rat Mort). Announce they also your "mechanical" pleasures, your weighty light-heartedness, your stolid, stoic essay to take unto yourself, still in tigerish itch to be cosmopolitan, the frou-frouishness of the flirting capital over the frontier. Wise old philosophers! Translating you in terms of your palaces of prostitution, your Palais de Danse, your Admirals-Casinos; translating you in terms of your purposely spurious Victorias, your Riche Cafes, your Fledermauses. ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... very rude of the young man to stare at you through an aquarium, as you say he did. The little fishes might have been flirting their tails at the time, however, and it is just possible that he might have taken you for one of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 34, November 19, 1870 • Various
... A gray squirrel, flirting its bushy tail, whisked across the path in front of him that moment, scampered up a hickory and perched itself near the top, where it offered the best chance for a shot that one ...
— Through Forest and Fire - Wild-Woods Series No. 1 • Edward Ellis
... is the thing for you," said Berlie Hallett, who loved this form of diversion better, even, than flirting. "Let us give him a picnic ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley
... to explain that his remark had reference to the mutual affection which he was well aware existed between his daughter and the gallant Lieutenant Lindsay. He had not, indeed, the most remote intention of permitting Maraquita to wed the penniless officer, but he had no objection whatever to their flirting as much as they pleased; and he readily perceived that nothing would be more likely to take the Senhorina's thoughts off her lost maid than the ...
— Black Ivory • R.M. Ballantyne
... and what there was seemed of the pleasure sort that parties go down to the sea to be sick in. The long parade was filled at most hours with the English who make the place their resort; whose bathing began early in the morning and whose flirting continued far into the night, with forenoon and afternoon dawdling and dozing on the pebbles. At one end of the Terrace rose a prodigious headland, whose slope was scaled over with broken slate, like some mammoth heaving from the deep and showing an elephantine hide of bluish gray. ...
— Seven English Cities • W. D. Howells
... that her pug was an angel, and I being unable to reach such heights as that was compared to my disadvantage with this man. I am nearly sure, too, that she wanted to flirt with Fred, quite regardless of the fact that he was no use at flirting, and I should have had something to say if he had been. In a short year she had changed most dreadfully, and was no longer satisfied with being liked very much. She was a puzzle to me, and had it not been for the bishop, who smoothed things over, I should probably have worried ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... who had stopped flirting, and been listening with soul and body to Long; "and no man, that is a man, will go against the right and the truth just because the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... Shaftesbury, on the contrary, who aimed at the same easy, degage mode of communicating his thoughts to the world, has quite spoiled his matter, which is sometimes valuable, by his manner, in which he carries a certain flaunting, flowery, figurative, flirting style of amicable condescension to the reader, to an excess more tantalising than the most starched and ridiculous formality of the age of James I. There is nothing so tormenting as the affectation of ease ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... have done with him. How dare you treat Her Highness in this disgraceful manner? What sort of pothouse is this? Where did you learn to speak to persons of quality? Take away your cold tea and cold cake instantly. Give them to the chambermaid you were flirting with whilst Her Highness was waiting. Order some fresh tea at once; and do not presume to bring it yourself: have it brought by a civil waiter who is accustomed to wait on ladies, and not, like you, on ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... pitchers on their heads, are hurrying towards the fountains which gush cool water at most of the street corners. Theirs is a highly necessary task, for few or no houses have their own water supply; and around each fountain one can see half a dozen by no means slatternly maidens, splashing and flirting the water one at another, while they wait their turn with the pitchers, and laugh and exchange banter with the passing farmers' lads. Many in the street crowds are rosy-cheeked schoolboys, walking decorously, if they are lads of good breeding, ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... hemmed, and washed when necessary, will be found best. Insist upon their being kept for this purpose, and forbid the use of toilet towels, always a temptation to the average servant. Remember that in dusting, the process should be a wiping; not a flirting of the cloth, which simply sends the dust up into the air to settle down again ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... in boarding-houses, what must it be in hotels, where the male company is ever changing. It is one constant life of scandal, flirting, eating, drinking, and living in public; the sense of delicacy is destroyed, and the women remind you of the flowers that have been breathed upon till ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... they turn out wonderfully well-dressed, and some of them mighty good-looking; and the young swells from the camp come down, and the diggers that have been lucky and begin to fancy themselves. And there's no end of fun and flirting and nonsense, such as there always is when men and women get together in a place where they're not obliged to be over-particular. Not that there was any rowdiness or bad behaviour allowed. A goldfield is the wrong shop for that. Any one that didn't behave himself would ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... though the Persian rugs and the pictures are fine; but the staircase is peculiarly charming. It looks a staircase made for sitting out dances with men you like, and evidently it knows its value as a flirting place and lives up to it, for there are fat, bright-coloured silk and satin cushions resting invitingly against the wall, on each one of the shallow steps. Most of the rooms are enormous, and consist half of quaint leaded windows, with seats ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... conceived a bitter rage at them both. One was lean and angular and sallow; she went about her duties grimly, with no nonsense, and Jimmie did not realize that she was ready to drop with exhaustion. The other was pretty, with fluffy yellow hair, and was flirting shamelessly with a young doctor. Perhaps Jimmy should have reflected that men were being killed rapidly these days, and it was necessary that some should concern themselves with supplying the future generations; but Jimmie was in no ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... in great request as partners. They have as much success as the younger sisters, almost as much as the mother in former days; moreover they carry off their tawdry jewelry and finery so well, and have such charming easy manners, with the giddy laugh of spoilt children, and such a Spanish way of flirting with a fan. Nevertheless they do not get married. No admirer has ever been able to get over the sight of that singular home. The wasteful and useless extravagance, the want of plates, the profusion of old tapestry in holes, of antique and ungilt lustres, the draughty ...
— Artists' Wives • Alphonse Daudet
... dresses and the freshest of leis and garlands. Our own men from the yacht contributed not a little to the gaiety of the scene. They were all on shore, and the greater part of them were galloping about on horseback, tumbling off, scrambling on again, laughing, flirting, joking, and enjoying themselves generally after a fashion peculiar to English sailors. As far as we know the only evil result of all this merriment was that the doctor received a good many applications for diachylon plaster in the course of the evening, to repair various 'abrasions of the cuticle,' ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... do any harm to make believe just for a few minutes, could it?" Angela wondered if she were flirting with the forest creature. But no. Certainly not. She never flirted, not even with the men of her own world, as most of the young women she knew were in the habit of doing. This was not flirting. It ...
— The Port of Adventure • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... places, and each man in his time meets with strange adventures. It may also very properly be termed a Camera Obscura, reflecting not merely trees, sign-posts, houses, &c. but the human heart in all its folds, its feelings, its passions, and its motives. In it you may perceive conceit flirting its fan—arrogance adjusting its cravat—pedantry perverting its dictionary—vacuity humming a tune—vanity humming his neighbour—cunning shutting his eyes while listening to a pedagogue—and credulity ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... agreed that it was excellent, and Mr Handel Wopples observed to Barty that his father often made jokes worthy of Tom Hood, to which Barty agreed hastily, as he did not know who Tom Hood was, and besides was flirting in a mild manner with Miss Fanny Wopples, a pretty girl, who ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... companionship—a perfectly fair assumption with girls accustomed to look on all men as possible husbands, but wholly mistaken as regarded myself, whose thoughts were in quite other directions. Startled, and my sensitive pride touched by what seemed to my strict views an assumption that I had been flirting, I hesitated, did not follow my first impulse of refusal, but took refuge in silence; my suitor had to catch his train, and bound me over to silence till he could himself speak to my mother, urging authoritatively that it would be dishonourable of me to break his confidence, ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... below looked up by hundreds and smiled at the ladies' eager twitter, as, flirting in humming-bird fashion from one subject to another, they laughed away the half-hours waiting for the pageant. By and by they fell a-listening, for Madame Delicieuse had begun a narrative concerning Dr. Mossy. She sat somewhat above her listeners, her elbow on the arm of ...
— Old Creole Days • George Washington Cable
... Mara on his arm," said Miss Emily; "that's as it should be. Who is that that Sally Kittridge is flirting with now? Oh, Tom Hiers. Well! he's good enough for her. Why don't she take him?" said Miss Emily, in her zeal jogging ...
— The Pearl of Orr's Island - A Story of the Coast of Maine • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... of Blandford as standing before him, reproachful, indignant, and even desperate over his wife's unfaithfulness; but this insane folly and fury over some trivial wrong done to that plump, baby-faced, flirting Dona Rosita, crushed him by its unconscious but degrading obliteration of Joan and himself more than the most violent denunciation. Dazed and bewildered, yet with the instinct of a helpless man, he clung only to that part of Blandford's story which indicated that he ...
— The Argonauts of North Liberty • Bret Harte
... The flirting chewink calls his dear Behind the bush; and very near, Where water flows, where green grass grows, Song-sparrows ...
— Songs Out of Doors • Henry Van Dyke
... us feel drowsy, but, as we fortunately had the end compartment in the corridor-carriage, we were able to open the door and get a breath of air. A bridge somewhat insecure-looking joined us to the next waggon, and a very amusing scene presented itself. The guard was flirting with a Finnish maid, a typical peasant, with a comely figure, set off by a well-fitting bodice. She had high cheek-bones and a wondrous round moon face; a large, good-tempered mouth filled with beautiful teeth, a good complexion, and weak, thin, straight flaxen hair, combed back from a very ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... flung open the door, and advanced into the ante-room. Michael was sitting at a table, a heavy frown on his face. Everyone else was standing, save that impudent young dog Fritz, who was lounging easily in an armchair, and flirting with the Countess Helga. He leapt up as I entered, with a deferential alacrity that lent point to his former nonchalance. I had no difficulty in understanding that the duke might not like ...
— The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... him. He "learned" them to be toads, or celebrities, or tried to. But his love of little jokes betrayed him. He, a sort of minnow, thought to trouble the pool where the great fish were oaring at ease by flirting the surface with his tail. It seemed to him that he was throwing up a fine volume of water; but the great fish held their way unconscious in the deep. Chiefly, therefore, he failed with all his cleverness. Brain he had, logic ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett
... me," assented Kellogg, unperturbed. "But the yaps, the Jaspers, stay there and clerk in father's store. After office-hours they put on their very best mail-order clothes and parade up and down Main Street, talking loud and flirting obviously with the girls. The girls haven't much else to do; they don't find it so easy to get away. A few of 'em escape to boarding-schools and colleges, where they meet and marry young men from the cities, but the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... desideratum. Here the jovenes dorados spent part of the afternoons sauntering along the arcaded walks, or seated around the great fountain watching the play of its crystal waters. But with an eye to something besides—the senoritas, who are there, too, flirting the fans with a dexterity which speaks of much practice—speaks of something more. Not every movement made by these rustling segments of circles is intended to create currents of air and cool the heated skin. Many a twist and turn, watched with anxious eyes, conveys intelligence ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... steward against the woman to whom he had engaged himself. Every feeling of his nature revolted against the task before him, and he found that on trial it became absolutely impracticable. He could not bring himself to inquire minutely as to poor Lizzie's flirting down among the rocks. He was weak, and foolish, and in many respects ignorant,—but he was a gentleman. As he got nearer to the point which it had been intended that he should reach, the more he hated Andy Gowran,—and the more he hated himself for having submitted to such contact. ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... to keep above it, Yet think of the small birds at roost and not In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? Their bulk in water would be frozen rock In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow They will come budding boughs from tree to tree Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee, As if not knowing what you meant by ...
— Mountain Interval • Robert Frost
... manufactured the Round Table, and did all the things a good English king should do. Little is known of his Prince of Waleshood. Was crowned in Westminster Abbey, but without the American contingent. Became proficient as a knight. Stayed away from the palace so much his queen began flirting. Al's sword was a wonder. Press Agent: Lord Tennyson. recreation: Grailing. ...
— Who Was Who: 5000 B. C. to Date - Biographical Dictionary of the Famous and Those Who Wanted to Be • Anonymous
... I forget him, but he is not on the flirting list, you know. We must amuse him, and not expect him to amuse us, though really, all the capital suggestions and plans for merrymaking always ...
— The Abbot's Ghost, Or Maurice Treherne's Temptation • A. M. Barnard
... delivered by grave and reverend Professors, under conditions of strict discipline, and at which the whole attention of the students must necessarily be concentrated on the subject. As for unlimited opportunities for flirting, there are none; and the necessities of college life compel each student to attend to his duties while within the halls, and then go home; wherever that ...
— Laura Secord, the heroine of 1812. - A Drama. And Other Poems. • Sarah Anne Curzon
... Rushmore had some right to insist, but she was a little doubtful herself about the meaning of what had happened. If it meant anything, it meant that she had been flirting rather rashly and had got into a scrape. She wondered what the two men were saying now that they were alone together, and she turned her head to look over the back of the phaeton, but a turn of the road already hid the motor car ...
— Fair Margaret - A Portrait • Francis Marion Crawford
... time the robin tried to be on friendly terms with her neighbor, I noticed her standing near him on the picket fence under his tree. There were not more than three pickets between them, and she was expostulating earnestly, with flirting tail and jerking wings, and with loud "tut! tut's," and "he! he's!" she managed to be very eloquent. Had he driven her from his nest? and was she complaining? I could only guess. The kingbird did not reply to her, but when she flew he followed, and ...
— Little Brothers of the Air • Olive Thorne Miller
... not so great a fool as not to know that she was a flirt and accustomed to attention. I suppose it was in my desperation that I told my brother, thinking he would tell you, as he did. He would not tell me what you said to him, except that you seemed to be indignant at the thought that I was only flirting with Frida. Then I resolved to speak with you myself—and I did. I know it was a stupid, clumsy contrivance. It never seemed so stupid before I spoke to you. It never seemed so wicked as when you promised to help me, and your eyes shone on me for the first time with ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte
... useful, or entertaining discussions, naturally alarms me. It is quite true that many things which look to me suspicious may be simply playful. Young people (and we have several such among The Teacups) are fond of make-believe courting when they cannot have the real thing,—"flirting," as it used to be practised in the days of Arcadian innocence, not the more modern and more questionable recreation which has reached us from the home of the cicisbeo. Whatever comes of it, I shall tell what I see, and take ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... manner towards him. Simplicity verges on coquetry. Was she flirting? he said to himself. No forcible translation of favour into suspicion was able to uphold such a theory. The performance had been too well done to be anything but real. It had the defects without which nothing is genuine. No actress of twenty years' standing, no bald-necked lady whose earliest ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... a nasty, unkind old thing,' said Mrs. Palliser; 'for, after all, the worst she can bring against you is flirting with your friend's cousin. I hope you are engaged to him, dear; for ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... disappeared. Madame and Jean-Marie were summoned from their rooms, and appeared in hasty toilets; they found the Doctor raving, calling the heavens to witness and avenge his injury, pacing the room bare-footed, with the tails of his night-shirt flirting as he turned. ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the good old English gentleman of the song, he does not forget the small. He pats the heads of street boys and girls; relishes the jokes of Jack the costermonger and Bob the dustman; good-naturedly spies out Molly the cook flirting with policeman X, or Mary the nursemaid as she listens to the fascinating guardsman. He used rather to laugh at guardsmen, "plungers," and other military men; and was until latter days very contemptuous in his behavior towards ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray
... imagining that it relates to the same young couple—that he has led her out into the conservatory or on to a terrace overlooking a moonlight garden and under these romantic circumstances, is urging his suit more persistently than before. She, however, is a little too fond of flirting to let her real sentiments be known at once. But when, as if giving up the riddle in her dancing eyes and seemingly mocking smile, he appears about to lead her back into the ballroom, there is, at least so I like to read ...
— The Pianolist - A Guide for Pianola Players • Gustav Kobb
... had also had his sharp word of warning, and had been told very plainly to cut out this flirting with Annie if he wanted to remain on Luck's payroll, eyed her strangely. Once he tried to have a secret word with her, but she moved away and would not look at him. For Annie-Many-Ponies, hurt and bitter as she felt toward her beloved Wagalexa Conka, hated Bill Holmes fourfold for being ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower
... Yankee tinned beef or for an illustrious Andean general! How magnificent it would be to gather all the Bishops in partibus infidelium and all the people with Papal titles in one drawing-room! The Bishop of Nicaea discussing with the Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire; the Marchioness of Easter Sunday flirting with the Bishop of Sion, while the Patriarchs of Thebes, Damascus, and Trebizond played bridge with the sausage manufacturer, Mr. Smiles, the pork king, or with the illustrious General Perez, the hero of Guachinanguito. What a moving spectacle it ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... had been with them an hour it was evident to many, not last of all to big Kootanie George, that the "Mex" was flirting openly with the yellow haired Ernestine. It was equally evident that his notice did not embarrass her as his apology had done. She curved her red lips at him when George was not looking, she glanced down as demure as a bashful school girl when her big lover was watching her. George ...
— Wolf Breed • Jackson Gregory
... ajar, and then closed with a resounding slam. Once, as the firelight flickered into the dark shed-room, the ignorant, superstitious mountaineers had a fleeting glimpse of an object there which convinced them: they beheld great gleaming, blazing eyes, a burnished hoof, and—yes—a flirting tail. ...
— The Young Mountaineers - Short Stories • Charles Egbert Craddock
... not think of it. But what then? And what was this little flutter at my heart about gentlemen's words and looks of homage and liking? What could it be to me, that such people as Captain Vaux or Captain Lascelles liked me? Captain Lascelles, who when he was not dancing or flirting was pleased to curl himself up on one of the window seats like a monkey, and take a grinning survey of what went on. Was I flattered by such admiration as his?—or any admiration? I liked to have Mr. Thorold like ...
— Daisy • Elizabeth Wetherell
... fist threateningly at the room above. "She shall pay for this," he muttered—" by God in heaven! she shall pay for this. She is a good-for-nothing seducer! Even in prison she does not leave off coquetting, and flirting, and turning the heads of the men! It is disgraceful, thoroughly disgraceful, and she shall pay for it! I will soon find means to have my revenge ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... for an entire evening with a very literary transcendental commission-merchant, she could not see that her time had been better employed than when in former days she had passed it in flirting with a very agreeable young stock-broker; indeed, there was an evident proof to the contrary, for the flirtation might lead to something—had, in fact, led to marriage; while the philosophy could lead to nothing, unless it were perhaps to another evening of the same kind, ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... auto-suggestion this made Warble hungrier than ever and she looked around for Petticoat. But he was busy flirting with Daisy Snow, and it was not Warble's way to ...
— Ptomaine Street • Carolyn Wells
... Summer girl is flirting on the beach, With a him. And the damboy is a-climbing for the peach, On the limb; Yes, the bullfrog is a-croaking And the dudelet is a-smoking Cigarettes; And the hackman is a-hacking And the showman is a-cracking Up his pets; Yes, ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... "Polite Polish Society for the last thirty years has felt itself to be in a most halcyon condition," says Rulhiere: [Rulhiere, i. 216 (a noteworthy passage).] "given up to the agreeable, and to that only;" charming evening-parties, and a great deal of flirting; full of the benevolences, the philanthropies, the new ideas,—given up especially to the pleasing idea of "LAISSEZ-FAIRE, and everything will come right of itself." "What a discovery!" said every liberal Polish mind: "for thousands of years, how people did torment themselves trying to ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... "You are flirting disgracefully with him," said Lord Henry to his cousin. "You had better take care. ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... delighted. Millicent wanted to hear from those who were not delighted, not even pleased, but in despair. She wanted to hear more of the broken hearts. But somehow the broken hearts were silent. Could it be that they did not care? Could it be that THEY were only flirting? She dismissed these silly questions with the promptness which they deserved. It was useless to think of it in that way—more useless, perhaps, than she suspected; for she was not deep enough, nor observant enough, to know that the broken hearts in question had been much more influenced by the ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... the utmost propriety and dignity prevailed,—no flirting nor coquetting; no romping of young ladies; no self-satisfied struttings of wealthy gentlemen, with their brains in their pockets, nor amusing conceits and monkey divertisements of smart young gentlemen, with ...
— Eighth Reader • James Baldwin
... play, and ball, So often with them now, That it must seem to one and all As binding as a vow. He certainly does mean to take One of the girls, and close The life he leads—the flirting rake— ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 545, May 5, 1832 • Various
... comrades, accustomed to spend the greater part of his leisure in frivolity and flirting. It therefore never occurred to him to conceal his admiration ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... I ought not to stay another moment. I left the nurse in charge of my babies, and I know perfectly well that by this time she is out at the back gate flirting with Sergeant Murray. Indeed, Mr. McLean, I do wish you would confine that altogether-too-utterly-attractive young man to the limits of the barracks. He's at our gate morn, noon, and night, and whenever he's there my Maggie is ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... revive the social life of "masks," but they are the people whose crust of artificiality was only cracked—or rather chipped—by the horror and reality of war. War never really reached them, except through their stomachs and their motor cars, or perhaps in the excuse it gave them for flirting half-heartedly with some really useful human labour. They never went "over the top" in spirit, and their point of view still reeks of the point of view of the farthest back of the base. These people ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... lord! jealous of a poor cornet, with no other fortune than an honorable name, and a bright sword! I thought you, too, had changed your mind, when I saw you flirting so merrily with that ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol. XXXII No. 2. February 1848 • Various
... lounging about. There were girls going along two or three together with books under their arms, and other girls talking with young fellows who hung about the doors of brightly lighted shops, and flirting with them. One of the girls, whom he had seen the day before in the Common, turned upon Lemuel as he passed, and said, "There goes my young man now! Good evening, Johnny!" It made Lemuel's cheek burn; he would have liked to box her ears ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... about near you. I feel it an effort to believe this because only a short time ago, while undoubtedly you were enjoying yourself with a foreigner concerning whom you know absolutely nothing, I discovered Sally Ashton seated upon a coil of rope in an obscure portion of this vessel, flirting outrageously with a young American physician. Your niece, Peggy Webster, is walking up and down the lower deck with a French officer; lower deck not the upper, mind you, where she might have been seen by you, although I doubt it. The ...
— The Campfire Girls on the Field of Honor • Margaret Vandercook
... "I've been experimenting—flirting with science," responded Eph, loftily. "Say, if you landsmen know a buoy from a banana, get down to the bow moorings of this steel mermaid, and I'll pass you the bow cable. It's a heap easier to lead this submarine ...
— The Submarine Boys and the Middies • Victor G. Durham
... dogmatically. "You cannot. I have brought up my Lucia in the only right way for a young girl to be brought up. She has been completely separated from young people of the opposite sex; she knows nothing of fashionable flirting and folly. And when I see such abnormal creatures as the New Girl, as they call her, I am horrified, shocked beyond words at the spectacle of their brazen independence and what they call their freedom, their comradeship with the opposite sex, their fearlessness and boldness ...
— Around the World with Josiah Allen's Wife • Marietta Holley
... maiden, Prone to flirting with all. A scented dandy, some lordling, Now striveth to win her caresses. With bosom swaying, One foot displaying, Doth she lure him on With the magic ...
— La Boheme • Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica
... to be in love with the man. How could she, who was ordinarily circumspect, and almost cold in her demeanour towards strangers who was from circumstances and from her own disposition altogether hostile to flirting intimacies how could this Clara have changed her nature so speedily? The squire did not understand it, but was prepared to believe that it was all for the best. 'I'll call him Will, if ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... was foolish of me to come, especially when there was no reason for it," she continued with assumed indifference, casting a sidelong glance at him out of the corners of her eyes. In spite of the pain she knew she inflicted, she could not resist flirting with him just a little even at such a moment. It filled her with such exquisite joy to feel anew the power she exercised over him and the unfathomable depth of his love which each fresh thrust at ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... on balconies—this truly Spanish motive in art, as Spanish as is the Madonna Italian—over which are thrown gorgeous shawls, smiling, flirting; with languorous eyes and provocative fans, they sit ensconced as they sat in Goya's time and centuries before Goya, the Eternal Feminine of Spain. Zuloaga is her latest interpreter. Isn't Candida delicious in green, with black head-dress of lace—isn't she bewitching? Her stockings are green. The ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker
... inlet at the farther side of the pond. There Mr. Li saw a gigantic carp idly floating about in a shallow pool, and then lazily flirting his huge tail or fluttering his fins proudly from side to side. Attendant courtiers darted hither and thither, ready to do the master's slightest bidding. One of them, splendidly attired in royal scarlet, announced, with a downward ...
— A Chinese Wonder Book • Norman Hinsdale Pitman
... flights up. Damp cellars don't trouble him, because they are too far down to do him any injury, even if they overflow. The cares of house-keeping are reduced to a minimum. His cook doesn't spend all her time in the front area flirting with the postman, because there isn't any front area to his flat; and in a social way his wife is most delightfully situated, because most of her friends live in the same building, and instead of having to hire a carriage to go calling in, all she has to do is to take the elevator and go ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... of the period, who solaces herself for the apparent defection of one lover by flirting with a new acquaintance; registered in his note-book as "Blonde; superb physique; fine animal spirits; giggles."—Robert Grant, The Knave of ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... and happy notions as to what fun should be, and how it should be transferred to a picture. Her long career began in 1866, and thenceforward, working with undiminished energy, she executed hundreds of initials and vignettes as well as "socials," devoting herself in chief part to hunting and flirting subjects. She was a facile designer, but her manner was chronically weak. It was John Leech who set her on the track; Mark Lemon, to whom she took her drawings, encouraged her, and with help ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann
... society, the great parties, and so forth. But there it stopped; even I should have been compromised if I had admitted into our set a woman who was bent on compromising herself. Handsome, in a bad style, not the Vipont tournure; and not only silly and flirting, but (we are alone, keep the secret) decidedly ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "Well, Rosebud—flirting as usual?" Captain Summerhayes, clad in blue serge, with his peaked cap on the back of his head, came labouring up the path, and sat heavily on the garden-seat. "I never see such a gal—always with the boys when she ought ...
— The Tale of Timber Town • Alfred Grace
... Giving some female consolation to poor Constantia.—Why, my lady, ha, ha, ha! I hear your vestal has been flirting. ...
— The Man Of The World (1792) • Charles Macklin
... in the balance, the seasons coquetted, gray-haired old Winter trifling and flirting with the warm, ...
— Black Bruin - The Biography of a Bear • Clarence Hawkes
... had stripped the blindfold from about Miss Ballister's head and with a quick jerk at the master knot had freed her cousin from bondage. With flirting motions she twisted the folded kerchief into a rope. Practice in the work seemed to have given to her added deftness and speed, for in no more time than it takes to tell of it she had drawn Miss Ballister's ...
— From Place to Place • Irvin S. Cobb
... mainly attributed the bloody tragedy that ensued, now made his appearance in the street. He wore a powdered wig, according to the fashion of the times among men of his official station, and his whole toilet had evidently been made with much attention. Carelessly flirting a light cane in his hand, and assuming an air of easy unconcern, he leisurely took his way along the street, towards the Court House, bowing low, and blandly smiling to every one he met, and often even crossing to the opposite ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... found that out long ago. Not but what you are right. I know you are right. If I were you, and had your skill in pleasing, I should drop soft words into her ear till I had caught her. But I have no gifts in that way. I am as awkward as a pig at what is called flirting. And I have an accursed pride which stands in my own light. If she were in this house this moment, and if I knew she were to be had for asking, I don't think I could bring myself to ask again. But we'll go to bed. It's half-past two, and we must be off at half-past ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... question of Mr. Dunborough,' he answered, smiling superior, and flirting his spy-glass to and fro with his fingers. 'Say the same to him, and—but are you going, my queen? ...
— The Castle Inn • Stanley John Weyman
... to believe Frank Leven, rather than Edward Hallin. Of course he must and should marry! It was absurd to suppose that he should not. No one had a stronger sense of family than he. And as for the girl—the little dancing, flirting girl!—why the thing happened every day. His wife should not be too strenuous, taken up with problems and questions of her own. She should cheer, amuse, distract him. Marcella endeavoured to think of it all with the dry common-sense her mother would have ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... last words, Striped Chipmunk was nowhere to be seen. It seemed as if the earth must have opened and swallowed him. But it hadn't, for two minutes later Happy Jack saw him flirting his funny little tail in the sauciest way as he ...
— Happy Jack • Thornton Burgess
... Now listen to me: I am going to speak as a philosopher. Julia is jealous of everybody—everybody. If she saw you flirting with Paramore she'd begin to value him directly. You might play up a little, Craven, ...
— The Philanderer • George Bernard Shaw
... have such young flirts to get married," said Dame Scratchard. "I don't expect she'll raise a single chick; and there's Gray Cock flirting about fine as ever. Folks didn't do so when I was young. I'm sure my husband knew what treatment a setting hen ought to have—poor old Long Spur—he never minded a peck or so now and then. I must say these modern fowls a'n't what ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... for neglecting their shops, their fields, their counting-houses, and their interesting families, and wasting their precious time in writing love-tales, "doleful ditties," and "distressful strains," for the magazines; for flirting with the muse, while their wives are wanting shoes, or perpetrating puns, while their children cry for "buns"! Suppose that, pointing every line with wit, I should hold them up to contempt as careless, improvident lovers of pleasure, given to self-indulgence; taking their Helicon more ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... modern disease and has little connection with flirting and lightness of character, though often the two are confused. Too restless to be faithful, born spiritual adventurers, these worshipers of emotionalism set up elaborate pretenses of pure friendships, ignoring the hot glow within: they love romantically, but ...
— Women's Wild Oats - Essays on the Re-fixing of Moral Standards • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... thickening—now a pressure of vehicles, drays, piled railroad crates—now a drove of cattle, making quite an excitement, the drovers with heavy sticks, belaboring the steaming sides of the frighten'd brutes. Inside the reception room, business bargains, flirting, love-making, eclaircissements, proposals—pleasant, sober-faced Phil coming in with his burden of afternoon papers—or Jo, or Charley (who jump'd in the dock last week, and saved a stout lady from drowning,) to replenish the stove, and clearing ...
— Complete Prose Works - Specimen Days and Collect, November Boughs and Goodbye My Fancy • Walt Whitman
... calendar of dates when certain of the pastimes and songs of our street children become fashionable is an uncertain one, yet games have their seasons most wonderfully and faithfully marked. Yearly all boys seem to know the actual time for the revivification of a custom, whether it be of whipping tops, flirting marbles, spinning peg-tops, or playing tip-cat or piggy. This survival of custom speaks eloquently of the child influence on civilisation, for the conservation of the human family may be found literally portrayed in the pastimes, games, and songs of ...
— A History of Nursery Rhymes • Percy B. Green
... at home, flirting with the Curate," said Alicia, with a laugh. As she sat, with her head thrown back against the chair, the light sparkling on her white skin, on her necklace of yellow topazes, and the jewelled fan in her hands, the folds of blue chiffon ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... I've watched Jacky.—After a while, he kissed me. But do you know, Mother, that was the end of everything! I stopped having thrills the minute he did it. His mouth was so—so mushy, and his nose seemed to get in the way.—Still, I went on flirting. I wanted to give him every chance.—He didn't kiss me again, though. When we got home I asked him why that was. He said it was because he respected ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... lost, Olive was left very much to her own devices for amusement. Some few young people that she knew came and talked to her for a little while, but they all went back to their singing, dancing, or flirting; and Olive, who seemed to have no gift nor share in either, was left alone. She did not feel this much at first, being occupied in her thoughts and observations on the rest. She took great interest in noticing all around. Her warm heart throbbed in sympathy with ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... than any girl in Monterey, and I am satisfied with thee. Think of the books thou hast read, the languages thou hast learned from the Senor Hartnell. Ay, my little one, nobody but thou wouldst dare to say thou cared for nothing but dancing and flirting, although I will admit that even Ysabel Herrera could ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... sat gossiping on the sofa; and Fanny, who in the course of the day had received more than one reproving look from her mother-in-law for flirting with Delphin, was now doing penance with the old ladies, to whom Pastor Martens had also ...
— Garman and Worse - A Norwegian Novel • Alexander Lange Kielland
... both against her womanly vanities. Accordingly I found them equipped for a walk, loitering on the front piazza, not waiting for me, however, as Dora took pains to explain, and as I could readily believe, for they were flirting over a new song. Not in the best of humor, I took the offered seat near them, wiped my heated brows, and advised my fair cousin not to saunter through the damp woodland paths on this most unhealthy morning. 'I advise ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 2, No 6, December 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... sob again, and toss her head upon the pillow. "What shall I do? What shall I do?" she wailed. "He hasn't ever done anything bad to me, and if I can overlook his—his flirting—with that horrid thing, I don't know what the rest of you have got to say. And he says he can explain everything. Why shouldn't I give him the chance, momma? I do think it is acting very cruel not to let him even ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... out to you," I said, "that duchesses, marchionesses, countesses, and other abandoned women of that kind have been flirting with military officers in such a way as to interfere with the governing of this country in accordance with the principles ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... improve your lot. I am yours, and do you be from now on my demoiselle!" "I thank you kindly, sire," she said. While the acquaintance of these two was ripening thus, the others, too, were engaged in flirting. For there were perhaps ninety ladies there, each of whom was fair and charming, noble and polite, virtuous and prudent, and a lady of exalted birth, so the men could agreeably employ themselves in caressing and kissing them, and in talking to them and in gazing at them while they were ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... feel it must hold between Mary and her Son in Heaven. I felt it pull close like steel when mine weren't fifteen minutes old, and it won't die when I do neither. And that Tom Mayberry are so serious that a-flirting with him gets him sorter on his blind side and works to a finish. Can't you try to help me out about that coat ...
— The Road to Providence • Maria Thompson Daviess
... difficulty in reaching the dead tree, he returned to the ladies, just as they were about to embark again. Perhaps he had caught a spark of the spirit of coquetry from Mrs. Creighton, and resented her flirting so much with Mr. Stryker; for he did not give her all the flowers he had gathered, but offered a few to each lady as ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... together at the same house, it may of course happen that they shall sit next to each other. And if people sit next to each other at dinner, it is expected that they shall talk. Nobody could accuse Emily of flirting; but then she was a girl who under no circumstances would condescend to flirt. But she had declared boldly to her father that she loved this man, and there she was in close conversation with him! Would it not be better for him ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... pilfering there; the arrangements necessary in the cooking and distribution of such large quantities of food, so that each should have enough, and yet that there should be no opportunity of theft; and the watchfulness required to prevent any of the girls employed in the establishment from flirting with any of the convalescent gentlemen. The wages given by the directors had been too low to keep servants long in the place, or to secure a good class of girls who would be above dishonesty or other ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... night. Free and informal were These picnics and excursions. Yet, although Helen and I would sometimes choose to go Without our escorts, leaving them quite free. It happened alway Roy would seek out me Ere passed the day, while Vivian walked with her. I had no thought of flirting. Roy was just Like some dear brother, and I quite forgot The kinship was so distant it was not Safe to rely upon in perfect trust, Without reserve or caution. Many a time When there was some steep mountain side to climb, And I grew weary, he would say, "Maurine, Come rest you here." And ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... before, there is another form in which the art of love is largely experimented and practised, especially in England and America, the form of flirtation. In its elementary manifestations flirting is entirely natural and normal; we may trace it even in animals; it is simply the beginning of courtship, at the early stage when courtship may yet, if desired, be broken off. Under modern civilized conditions, however, flirtation ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... the catastrophe of poor Sir John Bland, and the execrable villany, or, what our ancestors would have called, the humours of Taaffe. I am extremely sorry for Bland! He was very good-natured, and generous and well-bred; but never was such infatuation - I can call it by no term but flirting away his fortune and his life; he seemed to have no passion for play while he did it, nor sensibility when it ruined him but I fear he had both! What judgments the good people in the city (I mean the good in their own style, moneyed) will construe upon White's, when two of the most remarkable ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... down-stairs at dinner tonight, flirting with the grand dukes and big-wigs?" he demanded as he kissed her ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... "Mr. Drannan, I have caught on to your tricks with the Indians. First you make love to the squaws, and then you get the good will of the bucks by giving them knives to scalp the white men with. I saw how you made love to the squaws today when you were flirting with them across the river, and I saw them ...
— Chief of Scouts • W.F. Drannan
... nights when you can hear things; and with the vivid imagination I was enjoying then, I was almost afraid to try to sleep. But just as I was going into a doze, I raised up my head, and there was my cat walking up and down my frame, his back arched and his tail flirting with the slow sinuous movement of a snake. I reached for my gun, and as it clicked in cocking, he began raking my legs, sharpening his claws and growling like a tiger. I gave a yell and kicked him off, when he sprang up on ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams |
