"Furtive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... indulge in a kind of holy leer of disgust when "brought up sharp" by the Aristophanic lapses of gay and graceless youth. Such a person's mind would be a fruitful study for Herr Freud; but the thought of its simmering cauldron of furtive naughtiness is not a pleasant thing to dwell on, ...
— Suspended Judgments - Essays on Books and Sensations • John Cowper Powys
... crash of shunting ashes and the clatter of splitting kindling. But this pitiable creature still thought that mayhap he could, by sedulous care and coaxing, revive the dying spark. With such black arts as were available he wrestled with the despondent glim. During this period of guilty and furtive strife he went quietly upstairs, and a voice spoke up from slumber. "Isn't the house ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... silence as I helped myself to the great pigeon, and we began to eat with such a sense of enjoyment as I never felt before; but when my uncle and I were half through our pigeons Mr Ebony had finished his, and was casting furtive glances at the one still frizzling and browning before the fire in company with the fishes, which our guest ...
— Nat the Naturalist - A Boy's Adventures in the Eastern Seas • G. Manville Fenn
... into Harvey, met another going out into the fields. The Doctor looked up and was astonished to see Henry Fenn, with hard drawn features, trembling limbs, hollow eyes and set lips. He too had been fighting hard and he also had won his victory. The Doctor met the man's furtive, burning ...
— In the Heart of a Fool • William Allen White
... measure, and hurried about the room on his knees, measuring, comparing, examining, with his long thin nose only a few inches from the planks, and his beady eyes gleaming and deep-set like those of a bird. So swift, silent, and furtive were his movements, like those of a trained blood-hound picking out a scent, that I could not but think what a terrible criminal he would have made had he turned his energy and sagacity against the law, instead of exerting them in its defense. As he hunted about, ...
— The Sign of the Four • Arthur Conan Doyle
... warning was I able to command the emotions aroused by an encounter with Cyrus the Gaunt some evenings later. He was hurrying across the park space in the furtive manner of one going to a shameful rendezvous, and upon my hailing him he at first essayed to sheer off. When he saw who it was he came up with a rather swaggering and nonchalant effect. I may observe here that nobody has a monopoly of nonchalance in ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... wiped a furtive tear, and carefully folded up the sheet. It did comfort me to know that I had helped Charmion. I thought happily of seeing her again, of all the long interesting talks we ...
— The Lady of the Basement Flat • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... simultaneously falling (on her); in the Gomuttrika steps quivering like the brightness shown in the cloud imitating forked lightning; in the harmonious movements of her feet, having the time kept by the sound of the jewelled ornaments; with her lower lip suffused with the brightness of a furtive smile; with the mass of her locks put up again when fallen down; with her jewelled girdle-belt sounding by knocking together; with the brightness of her muslin dress, agitated as it rested on her gracefully prominent full hips; with the beautiful ball, ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... her, got up and opened the door. He stood there for a time, looking out into the gloom of early nightfall. He seemed to be listening, Lorraine thought. When he came back to her his voice was lower, his manner intangibly furtive. ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... wondering how much breath she should have left by the time she reached the end. On one of the landings she caught sight of a sandy cat and felt a little reassured at meeting such an every-day creature in this grim abode; she gave it a furtive stroke as she passed, and would have felt it a protection if she could have picked it up and taken it with her. That would have been undignified, however, and by the time she reached the editor's room only a very observant person could have discovered ...
— We Two • Edna Lyall
... off with the clerk, but before Jadwin had reseated himself at his desk was back again. He was suddenly all excitement, as if a great idea had abruptly taken possession of him. Stealthy, furtive, he glanced continually over his shoulder as he spoke, talking in whispers, a ...
— The Pit • Frank Norris
... a three-year-old you want, there's a place in Havana called 'Casa de Beneficencia Maternidad,' where furtive-eyed damsels leave kiddies at twilight, ring the doorbell, and beat it. You might pick up one there, as ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris
... whitely across the desert sand, And one came riding after with furtive mystery; Ah, one came swiftly riding, a dagger in his hand, And he was bent on plunder—a nomad thief was he! He did not heed the starshine that glimmered from on high, For laden beasts had traveled along the lonely way. He did not see the glory that swept ...
— Cross Roads • Margaret E. Sangster
... laughter sounded in the dark corridor, heard every word of the official's speech. He was no longer the bearded desperado Jack had seen in the melee at Rosedale—there was a certain distinction in the poise of the head, an inborn gentility in the impassive contemplation with which he met the furtive scrutiny of the curious visitors. Jack he eyed with something of surprise, but when Dick pushed suddenly in front of the timorous group of young women, he started, changed color, and averted his face; then, as if suddenly recalling himself, turned and devoured the lad with a strange, ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... preparing himself was not repeated; the persecution, if such had been intended, was not continued. As the days passed by he began to leave off listening and lying awake; he came out from his house or from the church without furtive glances of expectation to the right and left; he lost that constant feeling of apprehension and the necessity to nerve himself for resistance. He had never been one to gossip or concern himself with other people's matters, and Jane Sands had never brought the news of ...
— Zoe • Evelyn Whitaker
... one of her arms and hand. If I ventured to describe the attitude, there would be a fine howl—but there the Venus lies, for anybody to gloat over that wants to—and there she has a right to lie, for she is a work of art, and Art has its privileges. I saw young girls stealing furtive glances at her; I saw young men gaze long and absorbedly at her; I saw aged, infirm men hang upon her charms with a pathetic interest. How I should like to describe her—just to see what a holy indignation I could stir up in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... disposing of, or replacing as usual; but it was clear that his powerful understanding could no longer settle itself, as before, upon his responsible and arduous duties. Every other minute he cast a feverish furtive glance towards the door. He almost dropped, at one time, as a postman crossed from the opposite side of the street, as if to enter their shop—then passing on immediately, however, to the next door. Not a person, in short, entered the premises, whom he did not scrutinize ...
— Ten Thousand a-Year. Volume 1. • Samuel Warren
... convent girl. She was the beau-ideal of the little convent girl. She never raised her eyes except when spoken to. Of course she never spoke first, even to the chambermaid, and when she did speak it was in the wee, shy, furtive voice one might imagine a just-budding violet to have; and she walked with such soft, easy, carefully calculated steps that one naturally felt the penalties that must have secured them—penalties dictated by a ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... hasty whisper, "Housefather, O Housefather, there are a troop of reitern at the door, dismounting already;" and, as the master came forward, brushing from his furred vest the shavings and dust of his work, she added in a more furtive, startled accent, "and, if I mistake not, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to see the queen blush and smile, and look embarrassed and happy, and fling furtive glances at Sir Launcelot that would have got him shot in Arkansas, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... noses flat; that Thracian gods were ruddy and blue-eyed; and that if horses, oxen, and lions only believed in gods and had hands wherewith to portray them, they would doubtless fashion their deities in the form of horses, and oxen, and lions. Hence just as the furtive savage conceals his real name because he fears that sorcerers might make an evil use of it, so he fancies that his gods must likewise keep their true name secret, lest other gods or even men should learn the mystic sounds and thus be able to conjure with ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... wolf is the way of cunning and stealth: the stalk through the thicket and the ferocious attack upon the unsuspecting; and such example must guide Ben in his operations. He could not be too careful, too furtive. ...
— The Sky Line of Spruce • Edison Marshall
... rumor of an Indian uprising and every man rode into Hidden Water with an eye out for calico, some with a foolish grin, some downcast and reserved, some swaggering in the natural pride of the lady's man. But a becoming modesty had kept Lucy Ware indoors, and Kitty had limited herself to a furtive survey of the scene from behind what was left of Sallie Winship's lace curtains. With the subtle wisdom of a rodeo boss Jefferson Creede had excused himself to the ladies at the first sound of jangling horse-bells, and now he ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... fool enough to think of going down the Ghauts, Hastings?' But I did not look at that as equivalent to a direct order—whatever I should do now," the colonel put in, on seeing a furtive smile on the faces of ...
— Among Malay Pirates - And Other Tales Of Adventure And Peril • G. A. Henty
... with his back turned towards me, pulling his hand-bag out of the rack. He had a furtive back—the back of a man who, in his day, had borne many an alias. To this day I am ashamed that I did not spring up and pinion him, there and then. Had I possessed one ounce of physical courage, I should have done so. A coward, ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... remember the little city as it was one afternoon in early December. The population of 17,000 had then shrunk to about 900, and only a little furtive life lingered in the town. My promenade began at the river-bank by the wooden footbridge crossing from the shore to the remaining arches of the graceful eighteenth-century stone bridge blown up in September, ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... her again on our furtive way among the shadows. She was swift and sure, and made good time. She knew where she was going. It was a broad open space deep within the city. On three sides were wide closed doors like hangar doors. The fourth was a massive structure of rose granite, beetling above us, a monstrous ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... will serve us better than any traditional code. So only shall we learn to see if we cannot rid love of stress and pain that is unendurable. We force women and men into rebellion, into fearing concealments, and the dark and furtive ways of vice. For this reason we must, I believe, make the regulations of law as wide as possible, taking care only that mothers and all children must be safeguarded, whether in legal marriage or outside. ...
— The Truth About Woman • C. Gasquoine Hartley
... of all women there comes a moment when they comprehend their destiny,—when their hitherto mute organization speaks peremptorily. It is not always a man, chosen by some furtive involuntary glance, who awakens their slumbering sixth sense; oftener it is some unexpected sight, the aspect of scenery, the coup d'oeil of religious pomp, the harmony of nature's perfumes, a rosy dawn veiled in slight mists, the winning notes of some divinest ...
— The Village Rector • Honore de Balzac
... walked his room, swinging his hands backward and forward, casting furtive glances into his mirror, and then rang his bell. He had arrived at a conclusion. He had fixed upon his scheme, and was ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... these, with his compliments, to madame," whispered the girl, after casting a furtive glance about the apartment, to make sure Doctor ...
— Jolly Sally Pendleton - The Wife Who Was Not a Wife • Laura Jean Libbey
... a furtive air, for instead of preparing her history lesson she was deep in the evening paper reading about the war abroad. Stout and florid, rather plain, but with a frank, attractive face and honest, clear, ...
— His Family • Ernest Poole
... have given a clear and connected account of what happened after that. Isel cried and laughed by turns, the majority all talked at once, and little Rudolph, divided between fear and admiration, clung to his mother, and cast furtive glances at the new-comer. Manning was naturally astonished to see how his family had grown, and much had to be explained to him—the presence of the Germans, the approaching marriage of Flemild, the past marriage of Romund, and the profession of Derette. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... stately old lady in black silk, who, being hard of hearing, and therefore incapable of mingling in the conversation that ensued, regarded the new comer through her gold-bowed spectacles, during the remainder of the afternoon, with a furtive, but earnest attention which was quite embarrassing to the object ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... of the mantles, the chimerical or monstrous figures of heraldry, the branchings of the emblazoned skirts, the lofty attitude of the feudal baron, the modest air of the chatelaine, the sanctimonious physiognomy of the big Carthusian Carmelite, the furtive mien of the young page with parti-coloured pantaloons. . . . He excelled also in setting the persons of poem, drama, or romance in ornamented frames like the Gothic shrines with triple colonettes, arches, canopied and bracketed niches, with statuettes, figurines, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... seldom found his speculation centred upon one of these. The small eyes, the high cheeks, the broad noses, the puff lips, the bare, cue-filleted skulls, of Russians, Poles, Czechs, Chinese; the furtive glitter of Italians; the blonde dulness of Germans; the cold quiet of Scandinavians —fire under ice—were aspects that he identified, and that gave him abundant suggestion for the personal histories he constructed, and for the more public-spirited reveries ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... shortening sail, and in the course of an hour and a half had the most of it reduced—the top-sail yards down on the caps, the top-sails clewed up, the sheets hauled in, the main and fore peaks lowered, and the flying-jib down. While thus engaged the dawn advanced, and I cast an occasional furtive glance ahead in the midst of my labour. But now that things were prepared for the worst, I ran forward again and looked anxiously over the bow. I now heard the roar of the waves distinctly, and as a single ray of the rising sun gleamed over the ocean I saw ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... we examine the professional deadhead with interest. He reminds one of the hired mourner at the Hebrew funeral. Fantastic clothes, strange devices for keeping shirt-fronts clean, queer contrivances for protecting the throat during the bus-ride home, furtive umbrellas, ample reticules (in which perhaps goloshes are hidden), and a genteel reticence in applause or laughter, are marks of the stranger in the stalls—the harmless, necessary deadhead. He may not be ornamental, nor even she, despite her sex; perhaps they give little encouragement ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... with that noiseless, cat-like tread of his which she had always hated, perceiving in it a true index to his character: the prowl of a beast of prey, furtive, cowardly, cruel. It was so: Victor was as feline and as vicious as a jungle-cat. Watching him with this thought in mind, one could almost credit old tales of beasts bewitched and walking in ...
— Red Masquerade • Louis Joseph Vance
... usually so preoccupied and furtive that he made no proffer of courtship; but once when he seemed peculiarly triumphant he rode so close to her that their knees girded and their spurs clashed, and he tried to clip her in his arms. She gathered her horse and let him go, and he plunged ahead so ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes
... next morning in the corolla of a blue canterbury bell, she heard a fine, faint rustling in the air and felt her blossom-bed quiver as from a tiny, furtive tap-tapping. Through the open corolla came a damp whiff of grass and earth, and the air was quite chill. In some apprehension, she took a little pollen from the yellow stamens, scrupulously performed her toilet, then, warily, picking her steps, ...
— The Adventures of Maya the Bee • Waldemar Bonsels
... a moment intently. He was evidently agitated—evidently, too, in very bad health. His furtive manner was against him. On the other hand, that might have arisen ...
— The Evil Shepherd • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... this distant village so hasty an impression of night—Truly it encloses too much, that mountain, it imprisons, it impresses—And Ramuntcho, in his juvenile triumph, is troubled by the sentiment of this, by this furtive and vague attraction of other places so often mingled with his troubles and ...
— Ramuntcho • Pierre Loti
... a somewhat different nature from what I expected, and during the recital, I could not prevent myself from casting furtive ...
— Initials Only • Anna Katharine Green
... handful of rice at the departing carriage and met Maria's last disturbed look at the Hall, that he found time to carry Will's request and Fletcher's check to Christopher Blake. The girl had shown her single trace of emotion over the boy's pillow, where she had shed a few furtive tears, and the thought of this was with Carraway as he walked meditatively along the red clay road, down the long curves of which he saw the carriage rolling leisurely ahead of him. As a bride, Maria puzzled ...
— The Deliverance; A Romance of the Virginia Tobacco Fields • Ellen Glasgow
... and laughed loud. Mr. Birnie, from his dogged silence, seemed apart from the rest, though in the centre. For in a noisy circle a silent tongue builds a wall round its owner. But that respectable personage kept his furtive watch upon Giraumont and Gawtrey, who appeared talking together, very amicably. The younger novice of that night, equally silent, seated towards the bottom of the table, was not less watchful than Birnie. An uneasy, undefinable foreboding had come over him ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a page together, a very pretty girl entered the synagogue. She came to have a letter written for her by one of the scholars. I continued to read aloud, but I did so absently now, trailing along after my companion. My mind was upon the girl, and I was casting furtive glances ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... secluded &c 893. undisclosed &c 529, untold &c 527; covert &c (latent) 526; untraceable; mysterious &c (unintelligible) 519. irrevealable^, inviolable; confidential; esoteric; not to be spoken of; unmentionable. obreptitious^, furtive, stealthy, feline; skulking &c v.; surreptitious, underhand, hole and corner; sly &c (cunning) 702; secretive, evasive; reserved, reticent, uncommunicative, buttoned up; close, close as wax; taciturn &c 585. Adv. secretly &c adj.; in secret, in private, in ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... formal preparation for dinner, his mind ran continually on Sally's communication. As for the other young lady being valid, that he dismissed as nonsense not worth consideration. Vereker had been resorting to a furtive hint of a declaration, disguised as fiction. It was a fabula narrata de Sally, mutato nomine. If she didn't see through it, and respond in kind, it would show him how merely a friend he was, and nothing more. "Perhaps he doesn't understand our daughter's character," said Fenwick to Rosalind, ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... though I think that the conceding of a privilege to a burglar which is denied to a bishop is a conspicuous sign of the looseness of the times. But waiving all that, what business have you to be entering this house in this furtive and clandestine way, without ringing the ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... himself with her ladyship. He contrived adroitly to damage the steering-gear by grazing a wall as he turned the Aigle into the hotel courtyard, and by this feat disposed of the chauffeur's evening, which was spent in hard work at the garage. Such dinner as Jack got, he ate there, in the shape of a furtive sandwich or two, otherwise we should not have been able to leave in the morning at the early hour suggested by ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... wild and free and stirring, something furtive, crafty, cunning—the shadow of the dark primeval forest, at sight of him, fell across the glaring common-placeness ...
— The Hills of Hingham • Dallas Lore Sharp
... scarred by brambles and thorns, the elder man had lost his hat, and his silvery hair blew out in a confused tangle behind him. Even more noticeable, however, than the change in their attire was the alteration in their expression. Both had the same startled, furtive look of apprehension, like beasts of prey who hear the baying of the hounds in the distance. Their quivering hands and gasping breath betrayed their exhaustion, yet they glanced around them nervously, as ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... busy brown field-mice, Unwearying chase the furtive fat wood-lice, Then round the oak-tree's bole they slyly peep And tell you what you thought you ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, May 19, 1920 • Various
... lightnings tawny leap from furtive lairs, To helpless murder, while the ships go down Swirled in the crazy stound, and mariners' prayers Go up in noisome bubbles—such to them;— Or when they tramp about the central fires, Bending the strata with aeonian ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... with great caution. This door, as the least imaginative reader may easily conjecture, did not open itself. It was opened by Miss Margaret Callaghan, who immediately closed it softly behind her, paused for a few seconds with an embarrassed air on the stone step, and then, throwing a furtive glance up at the second-story windows, passed hastily down the street towards the river, keeping close to the fences and garden ...
— A Rivermouth Romance • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... inaudible whistle, and alternately regarded the summits of the palms and stole swift ferret-glances at the faces of the company. Captain Magnus had taken a sheath-knife from his belt and was balancing it on one finger, casting about him now and then a furtive, crooked, roving look, to meet which made you feel like a party to some hidden crime. Mr. Vane had remained for some time in happy unconsciousness of the significance of Miss Browne's oration. It was something to see it gradually penetrate to his perceptions, vexing the alabaster brow ...
— Spanish Doubloons • Camilla Kenyon
... find any water later on. We were now quite near the craters, and while we ate our rice, we heard the roaring, so that the boys grew nervous, till the joker of the company made them laugh, and then the meal absorbed their attention. Still, they occasionally sent furtive glances skyward, to see if any lava was coming down ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... and lax enough on many subjects. But once touch on the name of Dunster and Mr. Wilkins sank into a kind of suspicious depression of spirits; talking little, and with evident caution; and from time to time shooting furtive glances at his interlocutor's face. Ellinor was resolutely impervious to any attempts of his to bring his conversation with her back to the subject which more and more engrossed Ralph Corbet's mind. She had done her duty, as she understood it; and had received assurances ...
— A Dark Night's Work • Elizabeth Gaskell
... faltered Hill. The impassive mask of the well-trained English servant had dropped from him, and he stood revealed as a trembling elderly man with furtive eyes, and a painfully shaken manner. "I'll be glad to tell you everything," he declared, laying a twitching hand on the inspector's coat. "I've not had a minute's peace ...
— The Hampstead Mystery • John R. Watson
... almost have seemed to be asleep, so much were the lids lowered, suddenly grew alert again. A man appeared on the bridge—a lank, lean, yellow-skinned man, with a face that seemed carved out of old ivory, with furtive eyes and a fawning mouth. The new-comer was gorgeously, over-gorgeously, dressed, and his every movement affected the manners of a grand seigneur. He carried a tall cane with a jewelled knob, on which his left hand rested affectionately, as if it ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... this is true of all thrones—from which no altogether self-satisfactory descent is possible; and we all know it, sitting behind our newspapers, or staring down on decadent Greece shining at our feet, or examining with curious, furtive glances those calendars the feminine beauty of which seems peculiar to shoe-blacking parlors, and has sometimes led us to wonder whether the late Mr. Comstock ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren
... so badly hurt if he could come to the court house! But what was this? While the state's attorney held wide the door, Jake Hibbard solemnly pushed into the room a great wheeled chair, in which sat the small, wiry, furtive-eyed Lamoury. ...
— The Calico Cat • Charles Miner Thompson
... with furtive glide - A coach of closed-up kind? It comes to fetch the last year's bride, Who ...
— Satires of Circumstance, Lyrics and Reveries, with - Miscellaneous Pieces • Thomas Hardy
... time, whole mornings and afternoons, without once raising his head. He overacted his zeal. He would allow no one to disturb him, by so much as a word. And when Clotilde would leave the room on tiptoe to give an order downstairs or to go on some errand, he would assure himself by a furtive glance that she was gone, and then let his head drop on the table, with an air of profound dejection. It was a painful relief from the extraordinary effort which he compelled himself to make when she was present; to remain at his table, instead of going over and taking her in ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola
... men-at-arms and men-servants and retainers crouching below on the stone pavement; a dusky multitude, with a gleam of steel here and there, and red flashing eyes turned up with greedy longing towards the half-veiled faces of the women, met perhaps, now and then, by a furtive answering glance from under a veil or hoodlike shawl, for every woman's head is covered, but of the men only the old lord wears his cap, which he devoutly lifts at 'Gloria Patri' and 'Verbum Caro,' and at 'Sanctus' and at the ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... there are signorial rights which overlie the popular privileges. I fancied a symbol of these in the game keeper—whom we met coming out of the wood, brown-clad, with a scarcely touched hat, silently sweeping through the gorse, furtive as one of the pheasants or hares to which he must have grown akin in his custody of them. He was the first game-keeper I met in England, and, as it happened, the last, but he now seems to me to have been so perfect in his way that I would not for the sake of the books where I have known so many ...
— London Films • W.D. Howells
... but she was almost always alone, and then the exuberant gaiety would evaporate. One evening about half-past nine, she was sitting alone, wishing her father or her lover would come back to her, when there was a knock at the door. Alicia Derosne came in, with a hasty, almost furtive, step. ...
— Half a Hero - A Novel • Anthony Hope
... class, and she regretted Lydia's absence probably as much because it would entail the disappearance of old Jaggs as for the loss of her mistress. But old Jaggs did not turn up. Lydia hoped to see him at the station, hovering on the outskirts of the crowd in his furtive way, but ...
— The Angel of Terror • Edgar Wallace
... and threw a furtive glance around him. It would be impossible to describe the frightful expression of the half-breed's face as he thus recalled the terrible scenes of the Grampus. And it was not the expression of a cannibal of Australia or the New Hebrides, but that of a man who ...
— An Antarctic Mystery • Jules Verne
... In spite of his excessive politeness I conceived a feeling of distrust towards him from the moment I saw him; and this was because his small, watchful eyes were perpetually glancing at my face in a furtive manner, only to glance swiftly away again whenever I looked at him; for he seemed quite incapable of meeting the gaze of another. We drank mate and talked a little, but were not a lively party. Dona Demetria, though she sat with us, scarcely contributed ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... forget those furtive visits. The intense stillness of the night, broken by an occasional rustling in the grass or the hedge; the smell of the flowers in the garden beyond; the ...
— Love Among the Chickens - A Story of the Haps and Mishaps on an English Chicken Farm • P. G. Wodehouse
... Seminal Ship Naval, nautical Shell Testaceous Sleep Soporiferous Strength Robust Sweat Sudorific Step Gradual Sole Venal Two Second Treaty Federal Trifle Nugatory Tax Fiscal Time Temporal, chronical Town Oppidan Thanks Gratuitous Theft Furtive Threat Minatory Treachery Insidious Thing Real Throat Jugular, gutteral Taste Insipid Thought Pensive Thigh Femoral Tooth Dental Tear Lachrymal Vessel Vascular World Mundane Wood Sylvan, savage Way Devious, obvious, impervious, trivial Worm Vermicular Whale Cutaceous Wife ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch
... fete. The king was on his throne surrounded by his men of science. In a cluster of ladies in court dress, the Englishman recognized Bernardino. Catching his eye, she looked startled for an instant, and, then, with a furtive glance at the king, she swept her eyes back to Thorndyke and raised them significantly toward his chambers. He understood, and his quick movement was his reply. He turned immediately to an elevator that was going up, and entered it. Again ...
— The Land of the Changing Sun • William N. Harben
... pathetic story of how Ole induced his father to buy a new violin for him, and, unable to restrain his desire to play it, he got up in the night, opened the case, and touched the strings. This furtive touch merely served to whet his appetite, and he tried the bow. Then he began to play very softly; then, carried away with enthusiasm, he played louder and louder, until suddenly he felt the sharp sting of his father's whip across his shoulders, and the little ...
— Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday • Henry C. Lahee
... life in the woods at either side allured him with its furtive pulsing. But he kept to the road and passed on. He was not yet ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson
... say so," replied Leighton, with a furtive glance. He knew that Rickie was a milksop. "First night, you know, sir, among ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... as the Onondaga predicted. The foe came with the twilight. The dark wilderness about them gave back whoops and yells, and furtive bands skirmished with Strong's scouts. Then the shouts of the warriors increased greatly in number, and seemed to come from all points about the camp. It was obvious to Robert that the enemy was trying to make Strong's ...
— The Lords of the Wild - A Story of the Old New York Border • Joseph A. Altsheler
... their surprised compatriots that they were fugitives who had been in shelter in the town, and many a word of welcome was muttered, and furtive handshakes given. In return the boys were able to give the news of the arrival of the British before Delhi, and the commencement of the siege, all of which was new to the garrison, who had been for twenty-two days without a word from the outer world. At last the column reached ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... administers here a sort of mass, at which the whole court attend, even the chief ladies of the harem, who, behind heavy curtains of silk and gold that hang from the ceiling to the floor, whisper and giggle and peep and chew betel, and have the wonted little raptures of their sex over furtive, piquant glimpses of the world; for, despite the strict confinement and jealous surveillance to which they are subject, the outer life, with all its bustle, passion, and romance, will now and then steal, like a vagrant, curious ray of light, into the heart's darkness of these tabooed women, thrilling ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... the place And the loved one all together! This path—how soft to pace! This May—what magic weather! Where is the loved one's face? In a dream that loved one's face meets mine But the house is narrow, the place is bleak Where, outside, rain and wind combine With a furtive ear, if I strive to speak, With a hostile eye at my flushing cheek, With a malice that marks each word, each sign! O enemy sly and serpentine, Uncoil thee from the waking man! Do I hold the Past Thus firm and fast Yet doubt if the Future hold I can? This ...
— The Poetry Of Robert Browning • Stopford A. Brooke
... enthralling essays on it, written by a newspaper man who first fell desperately in love with it at seven—an age when the whole glittering town was symbolized for him by the fried-fish shop at the corner of the High Street. With him I have been going through its gray and furtive thoroughfares in the dead of night, and sometimes we have kicked an ash-barrel and sometimes a romance. Some day I might show that London to you—guarding you, of course, from the ash-barrels, if you are that kind. On ...
— The Agony Column • Earl Derr Biggers
... Avon cast furtive glances over his shoulder, and his heart tingled when he saw that he was steadily drawing away from the four figures which seemed to have sprung from the ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... thrown open to the select leaders of the Whig expectants. Of course the two coteries kept jealously apart; but Thurlow, who wished to be still Lord Chancellor, "whatever king might reign," was in private communication with the prince's friends. With furtive steps he passed from the queen's room (where he had a minute before been assuring the ministers that he would be faithful to the king's adherents), and made clandestine way to the apartment where Sheridan and Payne were meditating on the advantages ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... in silence, stealing furtive glances at Tom, as if he had been a guest from the other world, but not disbelieving his story in the least. He had seen, as most old navy men, so many strange things happen, that he was prepared to give credit to any tale when ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... of martyrdom are enhanced by the knowledge of an audience. Also, the rolls were a grateful addition to the turkey; her five-hour appetite was still insistent. She finished one of them and was about to begin on the second, when furtive footfalls sounded behind her, and one of the maids slipped a paper plate ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... thoughts were far away. When he did speak, Roger thought that Mildred looked apprehensive, as if fearing that he might again say something embarrassing, but his words were quiet and measured, betraying no excitement. The expression of his face, however, seemed unnatural to Roger's close yet furtive scrutiny. An hour before his eyes had been bright and dilated, and his countenance full of animation; now all the light and cheerfulness were fading, and the man seemed to grow older and graver by moments. Was the dusky ...
— Without a Home • E. P. Roe
... minute!" protested Costigan, with a quick and furtive wink at his companions. "Do you expect us to go through water, and ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... Revised Version, namely, 'righteousness.' The thing to be taken heed of is not the doing it 'before men,' which will often be obligatory, often necessary, and never in itself wrong, but the doing it 'to be seen of them.' Not the number of spectators, but the furtive glance of our eyes to see if they are looking at us, makes the sin. We are to let our good works shine, that men may glorify our Father. Pious souls are to shine, and yet to be hid,—a paradox which can be easily solved by the obedient. If our motive ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... he went out came the butler, who, with something of a furtive manner, produced and gave him a letter. Harry looked at the writing and thrust it into his coat. Alison ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... dancing girl obeyed his invitation. She sat by Estermen's side, but she cast a longing glance at Falkenberg. Their glasses were filled. Estermen drank quickly, all the time looking about him with the furtive air ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Bobolink, when there was a sudden whirring sound of wings, and they had a furtive glimpse of something flashing through ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts Afloat • George A. Warren
... roved all around like the furtive eyes of a frightened animal. But they came back to Katie's steadying gaze. "Why yes—I'll come—if you want me to," she said in voice she was clearly making supreme effort ...
— The Visioning • Susan Glaspell
... about him, what a fine old man he was and how proud his children should be of him; but suddenly as he was helping himself to lobster sauce, he flushed crimson, a look of extreme vexation suffused his face, and he darted two furtive but fiery glances to the two ends of the table, one for Theobald and one for Christina. They, poor simple souls, of course saw that something was exceedingly wrong, and so did I, but I couldn't guess what it was till I heard the old man hiss in Christina's ear: "It was not made with a hen lobster. ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... casting a furtive look at the old mahogany clock on the mantel; "which story do you want? You've heard 'em all ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge
... out of Belward's nose, his head thrown back, his eyes on the ceiling. It stopped, and came out of his mouth on one long, straight whiff. Then the painter brought his head to a natural position slowly, and looking with a furtive ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... well. When it arrives at the end of the quay, which was bedecked as for a holiday, the furtive little shadow pauses at the steps leading down to ...
— Fromont and Risler, Complete • Alphonse Daudet
... gentlemen of that peculiar breed, at once forward and shy, found in the Regent's Park, came by on their way to lawn tennis, and he noted with disapproval their furtive stares of admiration. A loitering gardener halted to do something unnecessary to a clump of pampas grass; he, too, wanted an excuse for peeping. A gentleman, old, and, by his hat, a professor of horticulture, passed three times to scrutinize ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... looking straight at me now, and there were tear-marks about the heavy lashes. Now, I do not pretend to explain the power, or witchery, a gentle slip of a girl can wield with a pair of gray eyes; but when I met the furtive glance and saw the white, veined forehead, the arched brows, the tremulous lips, the rounded chin, and the whole face glorified by that wonderful mass of hair, I only know, without weapon or design, she dealt me a wound which I bear to this day. What ...
— Lords of the North • A. C. Laut
... so disconcerted by this piece of audacity that in her confusion she took every one of the sugar-plums. Nevertheless, whilst emptying the box into the palm of her hand, black as that of a mummy, she cast a furtive and frightened glance at the circus, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... had as yet no opportunity of talking alone with Jane since we left the carrier. The incident with Tolla was to us wholly inexplicable. But that it was significant of something, we knew—by Jane's tense white face and the furtive glances she gave us. Don and I were ready to seize the ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... conversing in an animated whisper with a companion, a fellow-officer; they were talking about what it is far better not to—women. Our friend clearly did not wish to be overheard; for he cast ever and anon a furtive glance at his fair vis-a-vis and lowered his voice. She seemed completely absorbed in her book, and that reassured him. At last the two soldiers came down to a whisper (the truth must be told); the one who got down ...
— Stories by English Authors: England • Various
... the debt, and then earn something wherewith to finish his own education and Ted's. Now, seeing the whole scheme nipped in the fair bud by Ted's recklessness, small wonder if his heart grew hard. Presently, however, catching sight of Ted's face of misery, stained with one or two furtive tears, ...
— The Raid From Beausejour; And How The Carter Boys Lifted The Mortgage • Charles G. D. Roberts
... yet her slave. With a lawyer's cunning he put her to little tests to try the genuineness of her feeling. He threw off his restraint and led her back to the scenes of their youth. With a frankness that delighted her he told of his own struggles of the past nine years and watched with patient furtive care for every tone of feeling she might betray. When dinner ended, she was leaning close, her eyes misty with tears, and a far-away look in them that told of memories more vivid and alluring than all the splendours ...
— The Root of Evil • Thomas Dixon
... streaming eyes and outstretched arms, she would plead passionately for the condemned man's life. My father, at first obdurate, would gradually be melted by my mother's entreaties. Turning aside to brush away a furtive and not unmanly tear, he would suddenly tear the death-warrant to shreds, and taking up another huge placard headed REPRIEVE, he would quickly fill it in and sign it. He would then hand it to the Private Secretary, who would instantly start post-haste ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... speak, scarce dared to draw breath, for the man beneath them was Boone. There was something furtive and lupine about him that suggested the wild beast stalking its kill. No doubt he had become impatient to see the end of his foe and had ridden forward. He had almost crossed the path before he looked up and caught sight of them standing together in ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... rudely made by John; there had been guns and traps and snowshoes, hides, skins, the wings of birds, a couple of fishing-rods—John made his living by legal and illegal trapping and killing. He had looked like a trapped or hunted creature himself, small, furtive, very dark, with long fingers always working over his mouth, a great crooked nose—a hideous man, surely a hideous father. He hardly ever spoke, but sometimes, coming home from the town which he visited several times a year, but to which ...
— The Branding Iron • Katharine Newlin Burt
... afternoon was, the press of people was tremendous, and besides the numbers bent on amusement, throngs of men stood about under the wind-swept arcades, talking excitedly, some with frightened, furtive face and ...
— Calvert of Strathore • Carter Goodloe
... and comings by it. She served the meals, under protest, by Borden's time, and she had to go to church by it, which was the crowning injury. But she said her prayers by her own clock, and fed the hens by it; so that there was always a furtive triumph in her eye when she looked at the doctor. She had got the better of him by ...
— Rilla of Ingleside • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... time she stole furtive glances at him as he sat at her side; and once, when he had put his head back against the seat and pulled his broad-brimmed hat over his eyes and was seemingly asleep, she turned her head and gave him ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... Madge a week before. Witnessing Graydon's evident infatuation, he would have been glad to recognize any manifestation of traits that promised well for his future; but the young lady was evidently altogether occupied with the attentions she received, her own beauty, and the furtive admiration of fellow-passengers. Poor Mrs. Wildmere and the nurse were left to manage the cross baby as best they could. Graydon once or twice tried to do something, but his strange face and ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe
... parson's hat to catch butterflies in?" chuckled Jared, speaking to the Squire, but throwing furtive glances toward the stranger to make sure of his attention. "Gorry—but he was a cute one! Wish 't had been my hat. I 'd 'a' had it framed an' labeled, an' hung up ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter |
