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Furtive   Listen
adjective
Furtive  adj.  Stolen; obtained or characterized by stealth; sly; secret; stealthy; as, a furtive look. "A hasty and furtive ceremony."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Furtive" Quotes from Famous Books



... without importance, but the speaker evidently knew the ground. Ford had already noticed him, because they occupied adjoining steamer-chairs—a tall, sallow Englishman of the ineffectual type, with sagging shoulders, a drooping mustache, and furtive eyes. Ford had scarcely thought of the Argentine since the girl in the cabin had mentioned it—- now ten or twelve days ago; but the necessity of having an objective point, and one sufficiently distant turned his mind ...
— The Wild Olive • Basil King

... Day was drawing to a close, and Cedric had done little else than bemoan his hard fate. The whole day had been spent in wandering from place to place, urged on by the scoffs and jeers of his companion. Some furtive attempts to escape had been the cause of his present bondage. Hither, at length, they arrived. Tired and distressed, he sat down on one of the vacant benches, and gave vent to his sorrows in no very ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby

... 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

... outlawry. He was again, in spirit, a highwayman, though his hostility was directed only against those seeking to bring him to justice. The softening influence of the years spent with Lahoma was no longer apparent in his shifting bloodshot eyes, his crouching shoulders, his furtive hand ever ready to snatch the weapon from concealment. This sinister aspect of wildness, intensified by straggling whiskers and uncombed locks, gave to his giant form a kinship to the huge grotesquely shaped rocks among which he had ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis

... boy, would one day be the head of a household, and of a table such as this! Yes, it would assuredly arrive! Everything happened. And the mother of that household? Would it be she? Her imagination leaped far into the future, as she exchanged a quiet, furtive smile with Mrs. Orgreave, and she tried to see herself as another Mrs. Orgreave, a strenuous and passionate past behind her, honoured, beloved, teased, adored. But she could not quite see herself thus. Impossible that she, with her temperament so feverish, restive, and peculiar, should ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... done. And soon the hero came into the hall. His kingly grace and warlike bearing were such that Gunther dared not raise his guilty eyes from the ground; and Hagen's furtive glances were, for the moment, freighted with fear and shame. The message of the heralds was repeated ...
— The Story of Siegfried • James Baldwin

... weather. The restless way in which Tris queried of the winds and watched the clouds almost made John angry. "You do be enough to beckon a storm, Tris," he cried. "Let be! Let be!" Yet for all that John himself walked oftener to his door than was his custom, and looked seaward and windward in a furtive kind of way, very amusing to the women, who saw clearly ...
— A Singer from the Sea • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr

... did not know whether he would be master of all the world or only half, Azrael passed along, touched him with the tip of his wing, and pushed him into the Ocean. At the noise of his fall, the dying powers sat up in their beds of pain; and stealthily advancing with furtive tread, all the royal spiders made the partition of Europe, and the purple of Caesar became the ...
— The Confession of a Child of The Century • Alfred de Musset

... of Mayton Avenue, keeping close to the shelter of the houses, his mackintosh turned up to his ears, his hands buried in his pockets, a man walked swiftly along. At every block he hesitated and looked around him. His manner was cautious, almost furtive. Once the glare of an electric light fell upon his face, a face pallid with fear, almost hopeless with despair. He walked quickly, yet he seemed to have little idea as to his direction. Suddenly he paused. He was passing a great building, brilliantly ...
— The Black Box • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... stood or sat in groups. The host addressed those who were gathered round the log-fire, and they opened a way for the new-comer, some few, with republican freedom, inviting him to be seated, the rest giving one furtive glance, and then, in antipathy born ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu

... interested glances were cast at the young couple of successful players. They were taking it all so easily, with a careless, light-hearted enjoyment that was rather refreshing to turn to after a glimpse of some of the furtive, vulture-like faces gathered round the tables. Meanwhile, the grey-eyed Englishman continued to lose with the same persistency as his young compatriots were winning. Apparently he was playing on a system, for, in spite of his want of success, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... morsel of seafoam. These oddities in Mary's toilet, due to her inexperience and untutored shopping, puzzled her companions; and often, while she supposed them occupied with the fashions, they were stealing furtive glances at her clear, saintly profile, the full rose-red lips which contradicted its austerity, and the sparkling waves of hair meekly drawn down over the small ears. Her rapt expression, also, ...
— The Guests Of Hercules • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... hard for Fogg to come out from his grumpiness and cross-grained malice quickly. Half resentful, half shamed, he cast a furtive, sullen look ...
— Ralph on the Overland Express - The Trials and Triumphs of a Young Engineer • Allen Chapman

... the black face of the man whose eyes were luminous in the dark. As I stared at them, they met my gaze; and then first one and then another turned away from my direct stare, and looked at me in an odd, furtive manner. It occurred to me that I was perhaps annoying them, and I turned my attention to ...
— The Island of Doctor Moreau • H. G. Wells

... there were other things; no doubt about that. They were like songs, like colour, like sunrise, like flowers, these other things. But the basis of life was the desire of the male for the female and of the female for the male. And this had been warped and smothered and talked down and made a furtive, shameful thing, and it must be brought out ...
— Dangerous Ages • Rose Macaulay

... now 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, I let slip the opportunity. ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm

... windows and so strange when lighted at night that they seemed to regard men with the demoniac leer of something that had a secret in the dark. Who were the magicians and the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard of that furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded ...
— Fifty-One Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]

... There was nothing furtive about their silence; it was the wonder, the magic of being together again, that made them ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster

... were as colourless as the white fabric in their looms; their eyes sparkled with intelligence, but it was chiefly the intelligence of suffering, of privation, of keen sense of wrong, of inability to be better, of rankling hatred against existing institutions, and a furtive wish that some hideous calamity would bury them all in one common, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray

... very smallest boys in the party showed signs of a wistful desire to distinguish himself, and they turned their attention to him, pushing at his shoulders while he swung away from them, and hesitated dreamily. He was eventually induced to make furtive expedition, but it was only for a few yards. Then he paused, motionless, gazing with open mouth. The vociferous entreaties of Jimmie and the large boy ...
— The Monster and Other Stories - The Monster; The Blue Hotel; His New Mittens • Stephen Crane

... crudely constructed table; empty bottles, provision baskets, candy-wrappers and orange peels were scattered about everywhere. In the corner of the raft was a pile of earth, upon which a bonfire was burning, and a peasant in a short fur coat, squatting, warmed his hands over the fire, and cast furtive glances at the people seated around the table. They had just finished eating their sturgeon soup, and now wines and fruits were ...
— Foma Gordyeff - (The Man Who Was Afraid) • Maxim Gorky

... was said about the dinner, Mrs. Baldwin gaily assuming success, but avoiding the topic. The twins wore a depressed and furtive air. On the fatal day they had a long interview with Miss Browne, of the Browne School, and came away solemn with excitement, to shut themselves in their room for the rest of ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various

... proceeding, that when gold was to be contributed to ransom the state from the Gauls, the collection was made by a public tribute; that the same gold, when taken from the Gauls, had become the plunder of a few. Accordingly they followed up the inquiry, where the furtive possession of so enormous a treasure could be kept; and when he deferred, and told them that he would inform them at the proper time, all other objects being given up, the attention of all was directed to this point; and it became evident that neither ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... and wanted to help him, but he sent him back. "No, it's not necessary, go back." And then he added in a furtive whisper, and it seemed as though there were a note of fear in his voice, "Go and talk to her, you must talk ...
— Absolution • Clara Viebig

... hath four hareems—one for the stalwart women from the mountains to the north, one for the dark and furtive jungle women, one for the desert women that have wandering souls and pine in Babbulkund, and one for the princesses of his own kith, whose brown cheeks blush with the blood of ancient Pharaohs and who exult with Babbulkund in her surpassing beauty, and who know nought of the desert or ...
— The Sword of Welleran and Other Stories • Lord Dunsany

... his haberdasher kept in stock especially for him. He felt as if, in getting lost, he had got into the clothes of some other man—and that other one of much less quiet and old-fashioned tastes in dress. It made him feel as if it were he who had made the run to Canada with the bank's funds—furtive, disguised, slinking. ...
— Double Trouble - Or, Every Hero His Own Villain • Herbert Quick

... quite out of sight, and in passing her by, had slipped a note into her hand. The Frenchwoman had taken it, but in a way indicating shock. The ease which had given suppleness to her form and surety to all her movements was gone in an instant, and from the furtive way in which she sought to read the communication thus handed her Mr. Gryce saw that his own powers would soon be taxed to keep him even with a situation changing thus from moment ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green

... the innovation with a seeming unconcern, meant to hide an adverse feeling, which Rangihaeta, however, frankly expressed. He could look back upon his years, old Rauparaha, and mark in them enough stir and fight to satisfy a score of warriors. Age had crawled on to his shoulders, causing his furtive eyes to rest on the ground. But he was still himself, as Sir George Grey realised, on receiving certain information. It indicated that Rauparaha was in a league of mischief, that he had quietly given a signal, and that large bodies of natives ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne

... between Daphne and Jill, talking vivaciously. Jonah pretended to be asleep. After a furtive glance at the top of the cliff, Berry resumed his ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates

... hours at a 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 his ...
— Doctor Pascal • Emile Zola

... Eleanor, holding her little dog in her arms, was blind with tears, but Maurice effervesced into extravagant ridicule. His opinion of Mrs. Newbolt, her parlor, her ponderosity, and her missing g's, exhausted his vocabulary of opprobrious adjectives; but Eleanor was silent, just putting up a furtive handkerchief to wipe her eyes. It was dark, and he drew her hand through ...
— The Vehement Flame • Margaret Wade Campbell Deland

... had risen at nightfall, and it came softly across the snow, and tried the doors and windows as with a furtive hand. She could hear it coming as from an immense distance, passing with a sigh, returning plaintive, homeless, forlorn, to ...
— The Lowest Rung - Together with The Hand on the Latch, St. Luke's Summer and The Understudy • Mary Cholmondeley

... three of the most unfortunate of the border clans—the Nicksons, the Ellwalds, and the Crozers. One ancestor after another might be seen appearing a moment out of the rain and the hill mist upon his furtive business, speeding home, perhaps, with a paltry booty of lame horses and lean kine, or squealing and dealing death in some moorland feud of the ferrets and the wild cats. One after another closed his obscure adventures in mid-air, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Johnnie was bathing her eyes, Papa walked leisurely about looking at the pictures. His mouth wore a furtive smile. ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge

... 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 far enough ...
— The Spenders - A Tale of the Third Generation • Harry Leon Wilson

... ate her salad and broke fragments of delicious crusty roll, Claire threw furtive glances across the table at the man who for the last weeks had exercised so disturbing an element in her life. Was it six weeks or two months, since she and her mother had first made his acquaintance at the tennis club at which they spent so many of their afternoons? Claire had noticed that a new ...
— The Independence of Claire • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... the nose was quite high and aquiline; the hair had the look of being dyed; a long, thick black mustache covered his upper lip, but it could not quite conceal the hard, cynical and sneering expression of his mouth; great bags of flesh hung beneath the small, furtive eyes. Altogether the face reminded me of the portraits of Napoleon the Third, who was thought by many to have had little of Napoleon in ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly

... together. They had met in the boudoir, and came up the stair so quietly that I did not hear them. They all looked very subdued, and Marriot took the cane chair so softly that it did not creak. I noticed that after a furtive glance at me each of them looked at the centre-table, on which lay my brier, Romulus and Remus, three other pipes that all had their merits, though they never touched my heart until now, my clay ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie

... a more pleasing expression, but the timid furtive look, the ungainly gait, and the ungraceful contour of their abak skirts, detract from the moderate beauty that they possess in their youth. After marriage ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... could only spoil and deflower. Now, according to the temperament of each, they rose violently against society and its laws, or resigned themselves silently to a dire necessity. The one in Titanic effort climbed Olympus, heaving Pelion on Ossa; the other wiped a furtive tear out of his eye, and, aspiring to deliverance, dreamed of an ideal happiness. Sometimes in the same poet the two ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various

... of a furtive irony of the sweetest kind is the sure sign of the visit of that unlooked-for muse. With all spirit and subtlety does Marvell pretend to offer the little girl T. C. (the future "virtuous enemy of man") the prophetic homage of the habitual poets. The poem closes with ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell

... being cheerful and brave. It was saddest, of course, for Ellen. All day she was alone in the house, and, though she might busy her hands over a watercolor or an etching, her thoughts would often stray away and send the tears to her eyes. Occasionally she yielded to impulse and paid furtive visits to the nursery, where, with a little dress or some other memento of her lost child laid upon her knees, she would sit in long revery. By and by Edward noticed that her face had taken upon itself a constant expression of sadness, which even her smiles ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, Old Series, Vol. 36—New Series, Vol. 10, July 1885 • Various

... place to a feeble tittering; his stories dropped from his lips with but flat pungency; and instead of performing his lady-love's 'chores' with a mirthful readiness, he went through them in a heartsick way, the while directing towards her furtive looks of supplication. The true state of matters was now obvious to all Old Bill was another fatally-stricken victim of that spooney archer-boy who next to death holds dominion over men; and with his case, thus momentous, ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... Hugh had been so suddenly, so unexplainably taken from the house, back there in the little Eastern college town where they had lived. It was a few months later that Bella—Cousin Bella, who worked at "the farm"—came for him, a furtive, desperate Bella with a bruised face—a Bella tight-strung for flight, for a breaking of the galling accustomed ties of her life, for a terrible plunge into unknown adventure. She had muttered to him, as she dressed him and bundled together a few of his belongings, ...
— Snow-Blind • Katharine Newlin Burt

... "That's right, friend." He was small, furtive-eyed, and ingratiatingly friendly. "My name is Joe," he told them. "Actually, the name is Joao; but I prefer the archaic form with its flavor of more gracious times. Gentlemen, I couldn't help overhearing your conversation, and I agree ...
— The Status Civilization • Robert Sheckley

... could make use of it I'm a poor man, an' I could use it nicely," admitted the sly and furtive Parloe. ...
— Ruth Fielding of the Red Mill • Alice B. Emerson

... couple of hours to coax her into confidence and unreserved feminine fluency, I began to feel almost impatient. It was fortunate that, just as my tone involuntarily betrayed to her quick and watchful ear some shade of annoyance, just as I caught a furtive upward glance that seemed to ask what error she had committed and how it might be repaired, a scratching on the door startled her. She did not, however, venture to disengage herself from the hand which now held ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg

... There was something furtive and sinister about the man. Little could be seen of his face, for he wore a large hat of foreign make, slouched deep over his brow, and his lips and jaw were concealed by a dark and full mustache and beard. As much of the general outline of ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... command of the sea by mustering in Europe the forces of the Empire and acquiring abroad the disjointed German colonies. Naval strategy was reduced to the dull but arduous task of blocking the exits from the North Sea and guarding against the furtive German raids. The battle-fleet was stationed in Scapa Flow, the cruisers off Rosyth, while little more than a patrol—backed by a squadron of pre-Dreadnoughts in the Channel—was left to watch the Straits of Dover ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard

... down the broad promenade, deserted now save for one or two loungers like themselves, and a few other furtive, hurrying figures. In front of them stretched an arc of glittering lights—the wonderful Bay of Mentone, with Bordighera on the distant sea-board; higher up, the twinkling lights from the villas built on the rocky hills. And at their feet the sea, calm, deep, blue, lapping the ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... adspicere aliquem;" also to shine, as lightning, or a star. Lamech, therefore, is an appropriate designation for a man known to prowl about for plunder and murder, and whose eye, whether taking aim or not, would give a sudden and furtive glance. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 183, April 30, 1853 • Various

... has silently followed the scene from the sofa, presumably engrossed in his book, but at times has cast over a furtive glance, makes a motion as if to rise). If I'm disturbing you, you only need to ...
— The German Classics, v. 20 - Masterpieces of German Literature • Various

... shoulders together as they walked, for it was night, and a cold, sleety rain was falling. The lights from saloons and pawn-shops fell upon their faces—faces haggard and gaunt with misery, or bloated with disease and sin. Some stared before them fixedly; some gazed about with furtive and hungry eyes as they shuffled on. Here and there a policeman stood in the shelter, swinging his club and watching them as they passed. Music called to them from dives and dance-halls, and lighted signs and flaring- ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair

... was as it were rapaciously furtive. She answered in whispers, for there was the white arm of a woman in the next box peeping beyond the partition within a yard ...
— Ann Veronica • H. G. Wells

... to her is tender. He calls her 'Daughter'—the only woman whom He addressed by such a name. He teaches her that her faith, not her finger, had been the medium through which His healing power had reached her. He confirms by His authoritative word the furtive blessing: 'Be whole of thy plague.' And she goes, having found more than she sought, and felt a loving heart where she had only seen ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... was not tremulous, but, rather, vibrant, a taut mechanism played on by the rage that possessed her. Her eyebrows, high on her forehead, reminded him of things that crawled. Her eyes, brilliant like clear ice with sunshine on it, were darting, furtive, always in motion. ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay

... Island, and even navigated the river at this dangerous point, where craft were moving in many directions. And as the afternoon wore away, with mile after mile left behind, Jack, who had taken occasional furtive looks at his maps, concluded from certain signs that they were within ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel

... diplomas had been presented, and each girl, after giving furtive touches to her hair, sly tweaks to her muslin skirts, and caressing pats to her sash, had gone forward to receive the roll of parchment with a bow that had been the subject of anxious thought for weeks. ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin

... furtive glances about in the dark old wood through which they were riding and with a ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick

... thoroughfares. Nightbirds on their way home flitted by like shadows. Policemen lurked in the shadows of the houses. The few vehicles left crawled about with insufficient lights. Even the warning horns of the taxicab men sounded furtive and repressed. Lessingham, as he marched stolidly along, felt curiously in sympathy with his environment. Hayter's news brought him face to face with that inner problem which had so suddenly become the dominant factor in his life. For ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... womanly delicacy, avoids saying, in so many words, that the student omitted to equip his abnormal creation with a pair of ——. But Frankenstein's oversight in this matter will, I think, sufficiently account for that furtive besiegement of human homes, that pathetic fascination for the neighbourhood of man, which so long refused to accept rebuff. With ——, man is whole as the marble, founded as the rock, as broad and general as the casing air. Without ——, unaccommodated man is no more but ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy

... With a last furtive backward glance, Pennold mounted the steps and rang the bell nervously. The door was opened from within so suddenly that it seemed as if the man who faced his visitor on the threshold must have been awaiting the summons. He stepped quickly out, shutting the ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander

... shot. Others fell and died all along the route. Their deaths brought some relief to the starving inhabitants. For as each animal was left behind, the officers, looking back, might see first one, then another furtive figure emerge from the bush and pounce on the body like a vulture; and in many cases before life was extinct the famished natives ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill

... house the visitor says in a furtive way, "I was just wondering if I could get a drink anywhere in this part of the town?" "Certainly," says the guide. "Drive to an ...
— Behind the Beyond - and Other Contributions to Human Knowledge • Stephen Leacock

... creates Immortals to fill the chairs made vacant by death—and he has cut his initials or his mark close by those of the men who occupied the place before him. There they are, staring at you from the Table like so many abecedarian skeletons at the feast; and if you take a furtive and hasty peep from the doorway and lift the green protective cloth you catch sight nearest you of a "D. M." in close company with a beautifully-cut "W. M. T." and a monogrammatic leech inside a bottle flanked by a ...
— The History of "Punch" • M. H. Spielmann

... that this sudden movement on the part of Bergen meant something of the kind, but the situation was such that he could not interfere, and all he could do during the few minutes remaining of the trying interview, was to keep a furtive watch, so far as possible, upon the movements ...
— Adrift on the Pacific • Edward S. Ellis

... anxiety, as to whether Rome would have recourse to force of a less spiritual nature, and a secret commission had been appointed to examine and report from the frontiers any accession of papal troops, while envoys were sent to Ferrara on the same furtive errand: and the more serious Venetians were already discussing the possibility of war as one of the aspects of this quarrel ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull

... thought Tilly. She thought he was queerer still, as she caught his furtive glances toward that Smith girl. Presently Miss Tilly saw that the Smith girl was regarding Tom ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry

... his side, casting his surly, furtive glances from left to right, as if seeking to escape from these confidences. Nevertheless, the major kept on through the gully, until reaching the wagon road they crossed it, and began to ascend the opposite slope, half hidden by the underbrush and ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... ground a few twigs that had escaped the eyes of the caretakers. Deliberately he broke the twigs into tiny bits, and threw the pieces one by one aside. His gray face, drawn and haggard, twitched and worked with the nervous stress of his thoughts. From under his heavy brows he glanced with the quick, furtive look of a hunted thing, as though fearing some enemy that might be hidden in the near-by shrubbery. The young woman, shrinking from the look in his eyes, and not daring to make her presence known, remembered, suddenly, ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright

... church towers. My brother, very luckily for him as it chanced, preferred to push on at once to the coast rather than wait for food, although all three of them were very hungry. By midday they passed through Tillingham, which, strangely enough, seemed to be quite silent and deserted, save for a few furtive plunderers hunting for food. Near Tillingham they suddenly came in sight of the sea, and the most amazing crowd of shipping of all sorts that it is possible ...
— The War of the Worlds • H. G. Wells

... something 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

... carried me thus far when I became aware of a small, furtive figure, dodging from one patch of shadow to another. Leaning from the window, I made out the form of a somewhat disreputable urchin, who, dropping upon hands and knees, proceeded to crawl towards me over the grass with a show of the ...
— My Lady Caprice • Jeffrey Farnol

... did. She was a sweet-faced young woman, with a beautiful and well-trained contralto voice. Patty cast a furtive glance at Kit Cameron, and found that he was looking intently at the singer. She knew perfectly well he was wondering whether this might be the girl of the telephone conversations, and she saw, too, that he decided ...
— Patty's Suitors • Carolyn Wells

... a moment. Hamel, as he handed her to her place, was struck by a strange look which she threw upon him, half furtive, full of pain. Her hand almost clung to his. She slipped a little, and he held her tightly. Then he was suddenly conscious that something hard was being pressed into his palm. He drew his ...
— The Vanished Messenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... faith in the reasonableness of mankind having received a staggering blow, there began a somewhat furtive existence for himself, for Solomon Mahaffy, and for the boy. They kept to little frequented byways, and usually it was the early hours of morning, or the cool of late afternoons when ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester

... abandoned me,—you whom he was going to marry,—you with whom he hoped to enjoy long happy years, and a happiness not furtive and sinful like ours, but a ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau

... by the maid, Fownes entered. He took a quick, almost furtive, survey of the room, then glanced in succession at each of those seated about the table, till his eyes rested on Janice. There they fixed themselves in a bold, unconcealed scrutiny, to the no small embarrassment of the maiden, though the man himself ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford

... his stocking feet. His patent leather shoes had hurt him so much that he made short work of it and took them off during the dinner. There they stood without master or servant, one at the right, the other at the left of his disencumbered feet. Whenever the waiters passed by, they would cast one furtive but profitable glance under the table, and bite their lips to keep from bursting ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann

... those to which we are accustomed—mute ceremonies, in which sorrow is barely expressed by a furtive tear: noise, sobbings, and wild gestures were their necessary concomitants. Not only was it customary to hire weeping women, who tore their hair, filled the air with their lamentations, and simulated by ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 6 (of 12) • G. Maspero

... unreasoning melancholy, and sound of one kind or another is as ardently sought as at other times it is avoided. In this room Valentine could hear the vague traffic of the dim street outside, the dull tumult of an omnibus, the furtive, flashing clamour of a hansom, the cry of an occasional newsboy, explanatory of the crimes and tragedies of the passing hour. Or perhaps the eyes of Valentine were, for the moment, weary of the monotonous green walls of his sanctum, leaning tent-wise towards ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens

... the chief surprises of my life. He had been several times abroad, and was now beginning to walk a little with, an arm, when it chanced I should be left alone with him upon the terrace. He turned to me with a singular furtive smile, such as schoolboys use when in fault; and says he, in a private whisper, and without the least preface: "Where have ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson

... Kirkwood's quick sidelong glance discovered the mate in the act of taking alarm and quickening his pace. None the less the American was at the time barely conscious of anything other than a wholly unexpected furtive pressure of the girl's ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance

... Zeke stole a furtive look at the owner of the joyous voice. The voluminous ribbon bows behind her ears were mostly in evidence, as she bent her face over her ...
— Jewel - A Chapter In Her Life • Clara Louise Burnham

... occurred an uneasy movement among the assembled chiefs, some of whom exchanged quick, furtive glances of apprehension, which were duly noted by Dick and the king. The latter smiled somewhat sardonically and, beckoning the chief of his bodyguard toward him, murmured certain instructions in his ear. Meanwhile Dick, concentrating his thoughts upon ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood

... no!" said Cesarini, with a furtive and sinister glance, which a man versed in his disease would have understood, but which Maltravers did not even observe; "I will retire into your bedroom; my eyes ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... and carried off the doctors. Masks appeared and people in offices were dressed in gauze muzzles. In some of the cities the entire populace went with bandaged mouths, and a man who would steal a furtive puff of a cigarette stole up a quiet street and kept his eyes alert for ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes

... little alleys led down to the water's edge where the high tide splashed over the stone steps. I turned into several of them, and I always found two or three muddy men lounging at the bottom; often a foul and furtive boat crept across the field of view. The character of the shops became more and more difficult to define. Here a window displayed a heap of sailor's thimbles and pack-thread; there another set forth an ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume I. - Great Britain and Ireland • Various

... look very nice," murmured Tilly, a little hastily, sending a furtive glance into Cordelia's face. There was nothing, apparently, about Cordelia to indicate that anything unexpected had occurred, or was about to occur; and she herself could not, of course, ask why no preparations for an eighteen-mile journey were being made, ...
— The Sunbridge Girls at Six Star Ranch • Eleanor H. (Eleanor Hodgman) Porter

... gave it while lighting mechanically a cigar which he did not smoke and standing motionless in the middle of the lawn, heedless of the glances—furtive, discreet, sympathetic, admiring—cast at him from the windows and balconies of the surrounding houses. His quick eye, trained to notice everything within its ken, saw them plainly enough. The houses were not so distant ...
— The Street Called Straight • Basil King

... said Will, casting a furtive glance behind him, to make sure that no one from Garthowen was following in his footsteps, "Morva, lass, where hast come from? I will begin to think thou art one of the spirits thy mother says she sees. I thought thee wast busy ...
— Garthowen - A Story of a Welsh Homestead • Allen Raine

... grim-visaged than ever, and rang the bell for luncheon. To Harlan's fevered fancy, it sounded like a sexton tolling a bell for a funeral. Miss St. Clair, with the traces of tears practically removed, floated gracefully downstairs, and Harlan, coming out of the library with the furtive step of a wild beast from its lair, met her inopportunely at the ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed

... afternoon, when among the amlak trees the shadow grew grave and sweet with the furtive caress of light, the deer set off to run like a ...
— The Fugitive • Rabindranath Tagore

... to his new duties, and some, perhaps, implying a degree of curiosity not very unnatural under the circumstances. The truth is, the general effect of the schoolroom, with its scores of young girls, all their eyes naturally centring on him with fixed or furtive glances, was enough to bewilder and confuse a young man like Master Langdon, though he was not destitute of self-possession, as we ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various

... impulsive blind affection and desire. Reflective dealings with the material of instruction is constrained and half-hearted; attention wanders. The topics to which it wanders are unavowed and hence intellectually illicit; transactions with them are furtive. The discipline that comes from regulating response by deliberate inquiry having a purpose fails; worse than that, the deepest concern and most congenial enterprises of the imagination (since they center about the things dearest to desire) are casual, ...
— Democracy and Education • John Dewey

... was seated solidly in an armchair waiting, with a half-suspicious eye on Thorndyke for the report; and I was endeavouring by cheerful talk to keep Mr. Stopford from sinking into utter despondency, though I, too, kept a furtive watch on my colleague's rather ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman

... struggle for existence has been sharp and protracted; it has made them hardy and prolific; they will thrive in a lean soil, or they will wax strong in a rich one; in all cases they follow man and profit by him. Our native weeds, on the other hand, are furtive and retiring; they flee before the plow and the scythe, and hide in corners and remote waste places. Will they, too, in time, change their habits in ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs

... even in the United States. In "The Jewish State" Herzl alludes to the language of The Jewish State and passes Hebrew by as a manifestation of no great significance. He has a poorer opinion of Yiddish, the common language of Jews, which he regards as "the furtive language of prisoners." This was obviously an oversight. With the advent of Herzl, however, Zionism was no more a matter of domestic concern only. It was no longer internal Jewish problem only, not a theme for discussion only at Zionist meetings, ...
— The Jewish State • Theodor Herzl

... of the good man, to which the yellow metal seemed to have conveyed its tints. The glance of a man accustomed to draw enormous interest from his capital acquires, like that of the libertine, the gambler, or the sycophant, certain indefinable habits,—furtive, eager, mysterious movements, which never escape the notice of his co-religionists. This secret language is in a certain way the freemasonry of the passions. Monsieur Grandet inspired the respectful esteem due to one who owed no man anything, ...
— Eugenie Grandet • Honore de Balzac

... habit of keeping his eyes constantly in motion. As I was seated directly opposite to him at the breakfast table, I found it very difficult to restrain my inclination to laughter, for I could not raise my eyes without encountering one of those furtive glances. The idea occurred to me that he was meditating on some means of escape from the table, and it was with much difficulty that I maintained a becoming gravity. I was very glad, however, when my uncle made some remark which ...
— The Path of Duty, and Other Stories • H. S. Caswell

... a hazel coppice, far away from the farmhouse that sheltered the object of his tender thoughts and furtive desires, Joe sat among the first fallen leaves of autumn, fighting to clear himself from the perplexities of that disquieting situation. In the agony of his aching conscience, he bowed his head ...
— The Bondboy • George W. (George Washington) Ogden

... 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

... hitherto for his friend's discomfiture. Two or three children were leaning over the young girl's chair, and she was amusing them by some clever caricatures. She was not so interested, however, but that she soon noted the new-comer, and bestowed upon him from time to time curious and furtive glances. That these were not returned seemed to occasion her some surprise, for she was not accustomed to be so utterly ignored, even by a stranger. A little later Ackland saw her ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... to Galatz, a long half-day's journey. Andreas was not hard to find; he was smoking in the "Concordia" saloon. I saw him before he saw me; he had a furtive air, he was pallid and his lips twitched; he looked to me on the verge of delirium tremens. I approached him from behind, and uttered the one word, "Andreas!" At the word, he started as if he had been shot, spun round, dropped on his knees, with his hands ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various

... on bosomin' myself about it. It's all a misonderstandin'; the same bein' Cherokee's fault complete. We don't know him more'n to merely drink with at that eepock, an' he's that sly an' furtive in his plays, an' covers his trails so speshul, he nacherally breeds sech suspicions that when the stage begins to be stood up reg'lar once a week, an' all onaccountable, Cherokee comes mighty close to culminatin' in ...
— Wolfville • Alfred Henry Lewis

... days her distrust of him, for she could call it by no other name, had grown, and the furtive glances which he exchanged with Zita, little trouble-maker, were not reassuring. But when Eva's maid, motioning her aside, told her that she had been a witness to the departure of Zita and Flint, Eva's suspicions from a vague misgiving became a stern reality. She longed for Locke's return ...
— The Master Mystery • Arthur B. Reeve and John W. Grey

... Majesty the King gloated over his treasure. It was of no earthly use to him, but it was splendid, and, for aught he knew, something dropped from the heavens themselves. Still Mamma made no inquiries, and it seemed to him, in his furtive peeps, as though the shiny stones grew dim. What was the use of a 'parkle cwown if it made a little boy feel all bad in his inside? He had the pink string as well as the other treasure, but greatly he wished that ...
— Indian Tales • Rudyard Kipling

... of Heriz Magna descended the stairway with deliberation. His eyes twitched from the sobbing woman to Lord Rokesle, and then back again, in that furtive way Orts had of glancing about a room, without moving his head; he seemed to lie in ambush under his gross brows; and whatever his thoughts may have been, ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell

... and he cursed, muffling his tones. And a man named Bartley Wagg, having taken it upon himself to keep close tabs on Vaniman's state of mind, noted the prisoner's rebellious restlessness with deepening interest and coupled a lot of steady pondering with his furtive espionage. ...
— When Egypt Went Broke • Holman Day

... hand; he wanted to send the torpoon ahead at full speed. But caution restrained him to a more deliberate course. He was in the realm of the sealmen, and he did not wish to attract the attention of any. So he advanced like a furtive shadow slinking along the dark sea-bottom, deep ...
— Under Arctic Ice • H.G. Winter

... 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 ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... of enormous relief and a pat of furtive gratitude to Lad, the child set forth on her errand. Yet, even at risk of a sharper rebuke, she accommodated her pace ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune

... either, for I got well acquainted with his race afterward, and can speak with confidence. The cayote is a long, slim, sick and sorry-looking skeleton, with a gray wolf-skin stretched over it, a tolerably bushy tail that forever sags down with a despairing expression of forsakenness and misery, a furtive and evil eye, and a long, sharp face, with slightly lifted lip and exposed teeth. He has a general slinking expression all over. The cayote is a living, breathing allegory of Want. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... running through her mind as they sat there side by side isolated from the main herd of passengers, each silent, watching through the open rail the foaming water as it rushed past. Jefferson had been casting furtive glances at his companion and as he noted her serious, pensive face he thought how pretty she was. He wondered what she was thinking of and suddenly inspired no doubt by the mysterious power that enables some people to read the thoughts of others, ...
— The Lion and The Mouse - A Story Of American Life • Charles Klein

... hundred per cent. on the Trust's investment in them, but guessing is not knowledge; it is merely, in this case, a sort of nine-tenths certainty deducible from what we think we know of the Trust's trade principles and its sly and furtive and shifty ways. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... his careless eyes, that might 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 ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy

... undertaken, and instead of willingly coming out of his cage when the door was raised, he often had to be coaxed out and lured into the apparatus with food. Whereas Skirrl was frank and rather aggressive, Sobke was stealthy in his movements, furtive, and evidently suspicious of the experimenter as well as of the apparatus. He was perfectly safe to approach, but would not permit anyone to touch him. After a few days, he began to take food from the hands of ...
— The Mental Life of Monkeys and Apes - A Study of Ideational Behavior • Robert M. Yerkes

... the abstract thought, the dreaminess of look, the almost furtive glance. The minuteness of finish reminds us of Antonello, and the turn of the head suggests several of the latter's portraits. The delicacy with which the features are modelled, the high forehead, and the lighting of the face are points to be ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook

... walking stealthily, and casting furtive glances toward that part of the building where the guest had hitherto remained. Apparently satisfied that the coast was clear, he crept to the door and ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond

... his cap and eyed the speaker with drunken suspicion. When he recognized the cannery owner, a furtive light crept into his eyes and he beckoned Gregory closer. Gregory noted the mysterious mien and promptly credited it to the man's state of intoxication. He was on the point of hurrying on when Blagg's words ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton

... stratagem unveil. She then, approaching, minister'd the bath To her own King, and at first touch discern'd That token, by a bright-tusk'd boar of old Impress'd, what time he to Parnassus went 490 To visit there Autolycus and his sons, His mother's noble sire, who all mankind In furtive arts and fraudful oaths excell'd.[83] For such endowments he by gift receiv'd From Hermes' self, to whom the thighs of kids He offer'd and of lambs, and, in return, The watchful Hermes never left his side. Autolycus arriving in the isle ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer

... in the corner looked quite cheerful that morning; he had had two glasses of milk and had even gone to the extravagance of an extra cheese-cake. Polly knew that he was itching to talk police and murders, for he cast furtive glances at her from time to time, produced a bit of string, tied and untied it into scores of complicated knots, and finally, bringing out his pocket-book, he placed two or ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy

... regard as exclusively voluptuous; it is only befitting as between lovers, and not only do fathers refrain from kissing their children except when very young, but even the mothers only give their children a rare and furtive kiss. Among some of the hill-tribes of south-east India the olfactory kiss is found, the nose being applied to the cheek during salutation with a strong inhalation; instead of saying "Kiss me," they here say "Smell me." The Tamils, I am told by a medical correspondent in Ceylon, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... by the little Benares table and, resting her face on her hands, began to cry quietly. Rosanne stared before her with an absorbed stare. She seemed in a very transport of grave thought. When Mrs. Ozanne at length raised her eyes for an almost furtive glance, she thought she had never seen anything so tragic as her daughter's face. Her own was working horribly with ...
— Blue Aloes - Stories of South Africa • Cynthia Stockley

... little lands they come, From barren country-side and deathly slum, From bleakest wastes, from lands of aching drouth, From grape-hung valleys of the smiling South, From chains and prisons, ay, from horrid fear, (Mark you the furtive eye, the listening ear!) And all amazed and silent, scared and shy— An alien group beneath an ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay

... sentence in a low tone, with a furtive glance houseward, and bearing himself with an air of great complacency. He had become a very important person just then, had Anton, the "bound out." Moreover, he was wholly honest in his determination so to deliver the letters. That Judge in the woods hadn't ...
— Dorothy's Travels • Evelyn Raymond

... the present, I have not been able to learn that any of those fatal portraits have absolutely been exposed for sale, though I direct my trembling steps almost every day to Regent Street, and search the windows of the Stereoscopic Company with furtive and foreboding eyes, dreading to be confronted with presentments of myself—Bedell Gruncher, 'Vitriol,' the great critic!—lying across a chair in a state of collapse, sucking my thumb in a Gainsborough hat, or bestriding a ridiculous wooden horse ...
— The Talking Horse - And Other Tales • F. Anstey

... none of us. He struggled out of my clasp and disappeared over the long grasses with soundless leaps. He was no longer our tame, domestic, well acquainted Paddy. He was a strange, furtive animal—a "questing beast." ...
— The Story Girl • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... the nineteenth prelude in E flat! Its widely dispersed harmonies, its murmuring grace and June-like beauty, are they not Chopin, the Chopin we best love? He is ever the necromancer, ever invoking phantoms, but with its whirring melody and furtive caprice this particular shape is an alluring one. And difficult it is to interpret with all ...
— Chopin: The Man and His Music • James Huneker

... her?" repeated Wayland slowly. The night on the Ridge came back to him! Calamity's fear when the old frontiersman arrived; Bat's threat to expose something; Eleanor's perturbed letter; the father's half furtive defiant existence. He was too proud to ask more than the other cared to tell, too loyal to pry into any part of her life that she could not willingly share with him. He sat gazing into the mystic ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut

... a few days later, by the appearance on my desk of a small pot containing a specimen of camellia japonica in flower. I knew the school-children were in the habit of making presents to me in this furtive fashion,—leaving their own nosegays of wild flowers, or perhaps a cluster of roses from their parents' gardens,—but I also knew that this exotic was too rare to come from them. I remembered that See Yup had a Chinese taste for gardening, and a friend, another ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte

... haunting the crossroads and the village on the chance of meeting him alone. This never happened. Fate, rather late in the day, seemed to have taken her good name into its keeping. They met, of course, but under the furtive, curious gaze of others. Usually, too, Jacques had his boy beside him. It was as if he were afraid ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly

... and with the thud of the men's feet and the pad of the women's; all this with a secret challenge and defiance of one sex to the other, with separation and estrangement, with a never-ending, baffling approach and flight, with the furtive darting of man from woman and of woman from man, whirled in their courses from ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair

... dear, your papa would never wish you to do otherwise," said anxious Mrs. Copperhead, casting a furtive frightened glance at her husband. He rolled out a mighty laugh from the head of the table where he was sitting. He contemplated them with a leer that would have been insulting, had he not been the ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant

... throne, and he was told of the love the prince bore to Kuzia Fekan; whereat he was sore vexed, and going in to his wife Nuzhet ez Zeman, said to her, "Verily, to bring together fire and dry grass is of the greatest of risks; and men may not be trusted with women, so long as eyes cast furtive glances and eyelids quiver. Now thy nephew Kanmakan is come to man's estate and it behoves us to forbid him access to the harem; nor is it less needful that thy daughter be kept from the company of men, for ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... 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

... and furtive course down the winding river was one long misery. I recall no other equally wretched five days in ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... bleared and diseased creature, a thing of pity and terror to the wholesome, one of those outcasts of the world which every school has to know and reckon with. A furtive, nail-bitten, pick-nose wretch with an unholy hunger for ink, earth-worms and the like. What terrible tenant do the likes of these carry about with them! He, too, haunted me, but not fearfully; but he, too, I now understand too well, was haunted ...
— Lore of Proserpine • Maurice Hewlett

... the last time I cast a furtive glance behind me he had not recovered sufficiently to dash after me and overwhelm me with protestations of his uprightness, yay Bogu! and other ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood

... showing silvery white against the purple of the hill; and everywhere the German prisoner lads, mostly quite young and of short stature. The pony carriage passed a group of them, and they stared with cheerful, furtive looks ...
— Harvest • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... thy still sleep; All the night waits thee, yet thou still dream'st on. Furtive the shadows that about thee creep, And cheat the shining footsteps of the moon: Unseal thine eyes, it is my heart that sings, And beats ...
— Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. • Walter de la Mare

... years of world-war our ideas on death have undergone a change. It is not now the furtive thing that crawled into your bed and which you fought with pill-boxes and medicine bottles. It has become again a rider of the wind whom you may go coursing with through the fields and open places. All the morbidity is gone, ...
— The Insurrection in Dublin • James Stephens

... still at the dressing-table diligently brushing her shining, curly tresses. She had regained her composure and was taking occasional furtive peeps at Mrs. Frank, now seated at the foot of the bed, busy with a buttonhook and the adjustment of a pair of very dainty boots of white kid, whose buttons gleamed like pearls. The mates to them, half a size smaller, peeped from the tray of ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King

... differing in all other respects from Hugh Carnaby, showed a face which, like Hugh's, was growing prematurely old; a fatigued complexion, sunken eyes; an expression mingled of discontent and eagerness, now furtive, now sanguine, yet losing the worse traits in a still youthful smile as he came forward to meet his friend. Year after year he clung to the old amorous hope, but he no longer spoke of it with the same ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... the corners and stretched across the ceiling. The long benches were emptied of all save Leif's followers and Thorhild's band of women. The men sat like a row of automatons, drinking steadily, in deep silence, with furtive glances toward their leader. Leif leaned back in his high-seat, neither speaking nor drinking, ...
— The Thrall of Leif the Lucky • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz

... deary; Dick and Tom have gone to bed, and both are fast asleep. Come in and get your supper; it's been waiting ever so long for you." As she spoke, the poor woman cast several furtive glances at her husband, fearing that he was more than usually morose, as he had not spoken; but, to her surprise, he said, in ...
— A Sailor's Lass • Emma Leslie

... with the gentleman escorting her, was sitting near by. My first impression of her face was one of marvellous beauty, followed by a sense of dissatisfaction. Such was my distance that I could not annoy her by furtive observation; and I soon discovered that she would regard a stare as a tribute. Why was it that her face was so beautiful, yet so displeasing? Each feature analyzed seemed perfection, yet the general effect was a mocking, ill-kept promise. The truth ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe

... you will be comfortable. There's nobody else on this floor but Letty and the baby, but you don't look as if you would be easily frightened." Astonished, not so much by her words as by the furtive look she gave me, I laughed as I repeated "Frightened? What ...
— The Mayor's Wife • Anna Katharine Green

... that pleased the boy best was his father's account of those meetings with mysterious strangers. How as he approached they moved off with many a furtive backward glance; how he made as if to drive away in the opposite direction, and then at the first corner turned swiftly about and raced down some parallel street in hot pursuit, to come on them again, to their great and manifest discomfiture. Circumstantially he described each turn ...
— The Just and the Unjust • Vaughan Kester



Words linked to "Furtive" :   sneaky, surreptitious, sneak, backstairs, covert, concealed, backstair, furtiveness, stealthy



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