"Hesitant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... no, take that for your gipsy eyes, my dear," he said. Loveday stood hesitant. Even she, who had just begged of Miss Letitia, felt shame at taking a coin in charity. Yet she did so, for before her eyes she saw, not a silver sixpence, but the beginning of a length of white satin riband unrolling towards her through futurity. ...
— The White Riband - A Young Female's Folly • Fryniwyd Tennyson Jesse
... moment, Samson stood hesitant and overcome with diffidence; then, with set lips, he took his place, and experimentally fitted his fingers about a brush, as he had seen Lescott do. He asked no advice. He merely gazed for awhile, and then, dipping a brush and experimenting for his ...
— The Call of the Cumberlands • Charles Neville Buck
... he said in a hesitant tone, "it's a shame to think I'm nobody but just Nate, when they've made such a fuss! Be we goin' to git married, or ain't we? I s'pose we ought to, if I'm goin' to look after you and the babbies, and it seems as if 'twould sorter pay 'em for their ...
— Joyce's Investments - A Story for Girls • Fannie E. Newberry
... followed by the potato baron, with Parker bringing up the rear. Mrs. Parker's handsome face was suffused with confusion, and, from the hesitant manner in which she entered, Farrel realized she was ...
— The Pride of Palomar • Peter B. Kyne
... Berkeley, Landor, with whom, however, that literary form has had no strictly constitutional propriety to the kind of matter it conveyed, as lending itself (that is to say) structurally to a many-sided but hesitant consciousness of the truth. Thus, with Berkeley, its purpose is but to give a popular turn to certain very dogmatic opinions, about which there is no diffidence, there are no half-lights, in the ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... you are Mr. Leek, aren't you?" a woman greeted him as he stood vaguely hesitant outside St. George's Hall, watching the afternoon audience emerge. He started back, as though the woman with her trace of Cockney accent had presented a revolver at his head. He was very much afraid. It may reasonably be asked what he ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... N. Scott, in his essay on the "Child-God in Art" (344), is hesitant to give to many mythologies any real child-worship or artistic concept of the child as god. Not even Rama and Krishna, or the Greek Eros, who had a sanctuary at Thespiae in Boeotia, are beautiful, ...
— The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought • Alexander F. Chamberlain
... Phillida said, "Yes," in a hesitant way; for even the things she believed seemed false when uttered by ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... not all. Out of a clear sky charges were preferred against me. Outrageous charges in which that woman figured." Up to this point Gray had spoken smoothly, rapidly, but now his tone changed, his words became hesitant, jerky. "I was amazed! Joke, I called it at first. Sort of a blanket indictment, it was, charging me with inefficiency, negligence, exceeding my authority, dishonesty—and things even worse. Those were some of the least serious, the least—nasty. It was all too absurd! Being peculiarly ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... ponderous sing-song a voice that seemed to come from inside a barrel. He knew the voice. It belonged to a reddish-blond, simply dressed man with reddened eyelids and a clammy look, as if he had just taken a bath. At supper in the cabin he had been Tonio Kroeger's neighbor and with hesitant and modest motions he had taken unto himself astonishing quantities of lobster-omelette. Now he was leaning against the rail beside his new acquaintance and looking up at the sky, holding his chin with thumb and forefinger. Without doubt he was in one of those extraordinary and ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... say?" Gilder questioned. There was something pitiful in the distress of this man, usually so strong and so certain of his course. Now, he was hesitant in his movements, and his mellow voice came more weakly than its wont. There was a pathetic pleading in the dulled eyes with which ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... allowed his story of the case to be published and the Reverend Mr. Bragge rushed into print with a book that went through five editions. Needless to say, the defenders of Jane Wenham and of the judge who released her were not hesitant in replying. A physician who did not sign his name directed crushing ridicule against the whole affair,[42] while a defender of Justice Powell considered the case in a mild-mannered fashion: he did not deny the possibility of witchcraft, but made a keen ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... lips for a space, as if hesitant to break the silence. "Have you ever heard of the ...
— The Grey Cloak • Harold MacGrath
... for missions, or pensions, or the raising of clergy stipends; the "Nation-wide Campaign," the "Inter-Church World Movement"; these—not to speak of the growing policy of "making it easy" for the hesitant to "come into the church" by minimizing unpopular clauses in the Creeds or loosening-up on discipline, and of attracting "advanced" elements by the advocacy and exploiting of each new social or industrial or political fad as it arises—are strong ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... eyes were troubled. "David," she was hesitant, yet earnest. "It is really necessary to associate with people such as—well, you know ... James Casey, Billy ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... his listing of the book. The other point is that he says in his introduction and repeats in his entry that the Doctrina had a Latin as well as Spanish and Tagalog texts, an erroneous translation of Adelung's "mit lateinische und tagalische Schrift." He was hesitant as are all bibliographers, who must perforce record the probable existence of a book a copy of which they have never seen, in committing himself as to whether it was printed from blocks or from type or by a combination ...
— Doctrina Christiana • Anonymous
... the Bible that bar the way—but if a certain course is becoming. "Need I pass through that rite?" It is becoming. "Need I perform that lowly act?" It is becoming. "Need I renounce my liberty of action in that respect?" It would be very becoming. And whenever some hesitant soul, timid and nervous to the last degree, dares to step out, and do what it believes to be the right thing because it is becoming, Jesus comes to it, enlinks his arm, and says, "Thou art not alone in this. Thou ...
— John the Baptist • F. B. Meyer
... breath, our hearts to beat with the very pain and rage of hers, and every pause she comes to in her speech is our pause, so intense is the evocation, so unerring the expression of an impulse which, whether or no it be atrophied in our more hesitant and civilised consciousness, is at any ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... by the cot watching the faintly flickering life that, bereft of conscious will, fought for existence with each deep-drawn breath. About two in the morning Pete's breathing seemed to stop. Doris felt the hesitant throb of the pulse and, rising, stepped to the hall and telephoned for ...
— The Ridin' Kid from Powder River • Henry Herbert Knibbs
... afternoon of the following day, December 6, when M. S. sat across the table from me in my own study. I had made a rather hesitant attempt to tell him, without dramatics and without dwelling on my own lack of courage, of the events ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science February 1930 • Various
... of the room, in the street, had flung himself upon a hesitant taxi-driver, had bullied and cajoled him to take a monstrous and undreamt-of journey for a man who, by his own admission, had only sufficient petrol to get his taxi home, and when the girl came down she found Bones, with his arm entwined through the ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... do not accept "The Inn Album" as the first hesitant swing of the tide. I seem to hear the resilient undertone all through the long slow poise of "The Ring and the Book." Where then is the full splendour and rush of the tide, where its culminating reach ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... see nothing to get excited about," said the ever-doubtful, ever-hesitant Jimmie. "It's ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... was bare-headed, dressed in dark trousers and a loose, short-sleeved blouse. His neck and muscular forearms gleamed bronze in the sunlight. "You like what we do here?" he asked in his deep, hesitant manner. ...
— The Invaders • Benjamin Ferris
... Wright said, gruffly, that a man with one foot in the grave couldn't dance a jig, so he preferred to stay at home. But the rest of Old Chester said that although she was so quiet and kept herself to herself so much, Mrs. Richie was a ladylike person; a little shy, perhaps—or perhaps only properly hesitant to push her way into society; at any rate it was but kind to ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... encouragement for the seemingly backward, hesitant youth in the story of Henry Ward ...
— Stories of Achievement, Volume III (of 6) - Orators and Reformers • Various
... looked closely at Juba and felt at her forehead. "Perhaps it is forcing you too soon," she said with a hesitant frown which for a moment made her look like someone else. "It is not too late, Juba, to ...
— Step IV • Rosel George Brown
... "Jean-Christophe" significantly entitled "Dans la Maison." It expressed the essential France hidden by the glare of the Third Republic. The music of Cesar Franck is the music of the people driven into themselves by the conditions of modern life. It is the music of the fine ones who stand hesitant on the threshold of the world, and have incessantly to struggle for the power to act, for faith and hope. It is the music of those who in the midst of millions feel themselves forsaken and alone and powerless, and in whose ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld
... from her hands. But she did not leave. She stood, still hesitant, looking up at him. He motioned to his chair, the only one in ...
— The House of Toys • Henry Russell Miller
... the sunlight makes more strangely fair Each shining street, each steeple where it stands, Something like Spring is blowing down the air, Touching the Town with light, transforming hands. Half-shy and hesitant, a Something stays One trembling instant where the sun is sweet,— A quickening presence on these winter ways, Haunting and swift—and gone on ...
— Ships in Harbour • David Morton
... in the great audience-chamber back of the loggia where Caterina sat—a sound of hesitant feet, as of many who came unwillingly, unutterably weary from the dull ...
— The Royal Pawn of Venice - A Romance of Cyprus • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... she who became hesitant but after a little she suggested, "Come on down hyar under thet old walnuck tree. Seems like I ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... would help her in her daily life. She tried her Lord, to prove if his promises were indeed true, and she clung to them to the very last. No one knew her need. No one knew what she was praying for. The stranger did not know anything of her. She had asked money of no one but the Lord. Hesitant ever, she dared not name any amount of the Lord, but that ever present Spirit of God guided her heart, made her fix the amount, and then touched the heart of the stranger and fixed the amount also in his mind, and then, by his own guidance saved ...
— The Wonders of Prayer - A Record of Well Authenticated and Wonderful Answers to Prayer • Various
... little girl stood hesitant; then the sight of Brida, white and scared on her pillow, roused her to quick thought. If she could only smuggle Popover down into Dr Dudley's office before she was discovered! Instinct told her ...
— Polly of the Hospital Staff • Emma C. Dowd
... Priest of Energy, had long since declared war against the genius of the American people, who believed in God and the art of leisure. Hamilton believed in God and a cabinet of zealous ministers. He was already a thorn in the side of estimable but hesitant patriots, and in times to come his unremitting and remorseless energy was to be a subject of reproach by associates and enemies alike. Even Jefferson, that idol of the present as of the past democracy, had timidly ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... becomes him, and quietly takes the position of superiority to the king whom he has made. I Samuel xi. 15 seems to imply that he took no part in the rejoicings. It was 'Saul and all the men of Israel' who were so glad. He was still hesitant as to the issue, and obeyed the divine command with clearer insight into its purpose than the shouting crowd and the proud young king had. There is something very pathetic in the contrast he draws between Saul ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... hesitant intimacy now between these two people, but it had never got so far as friendship. Mrs. Richie's retreating shyness was courteous, but never cordial; Robert Ferguson's somber egotism was kind, but never generous. Yet, owing no doubt to their two children, and to the fact ...
— The Iron Woman • Margaret Deland
... he was going to the hospital, major," was the hesitant reply, "but I think he stopped at Bedlam,—at ...
— 'Laramie;' - or, The Queen of Bedlam. • Charles King
... stoop and rang the bell. A servant opened the door, showed him into the dimly lighted parlor, and went up the stairs with his name. He heard her footsteps, light, hesitant. She appeared before him, ...
— The Nine-Tenths • James Oppenheim
... moreover, indecision in politics is common enough among men who are strong and able in other activities. Mr. Taft was a great judge but wrecked his administration as President by inability to make up his mind. Senator Kellogg was a brilliantly successful lawyer; but in public life he is so hesitant that Minnesota politicians speak of him as "Nervous Nelly," and even Mr. Taft, during the Treaty fight, rebuked him to his face for ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... cleared his throat. With a hesitant manner he recited the discovery of the queer light in the deserted house, its unaccountable disappearances their failure ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... each other, and their glance did not mean high appreciation of the speaker's intellectual powers. There was a lack of practicalness in such faith in another man as expressed itself in the wistful, hesitant voice. ...
— "Seth" • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... voice was coming over the speaker, hesitant and apologetic, using the common tongue of the Galactic Confederation. "How soon can you come?" the voice was asking clearly, still with the sound of great reticence. ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... the creek, the strange creek whose stepping-stones he did not know. Shivering, hesitant, he stripped off his shoes and stockings and dabbled the edge of the water with reluctant toes, to see if ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... antecedents, Des Esseintes discovered, under the hesitant strokes of the sketches, a talent already deeply affected by Baudelaire, whose influence had been accentuated later on, acquiesced in by the peerless master; but the imitation ...
— Against The Grain • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... the house came the answering call—not a question this time, not hesitant, but quick ...
— The Bacillus of Beauty - A Romance of To-day • Harriet Stark
... truthfully that she can neither leap a creek nor surmount some such obstacle as a monster tree trunk with a close approach to the ease and grace of this mother who came bounding through the forest. There was nothing unknowing or hesitant about her movements. She ran swiftly and leaped lightly when occasion came. She was lithe as the panther and as careless of where her brown feet ...
— The Story of Ab - A Tale of the Time of the Cave Man • Stanley Waterloo
... Maisie who had prevented him up to now—Maisie with her laughter, her breezy arguments, her short views of life, her contempt for sentiment, her sledge-hammer motto, with which she shattered the past, "I never dig up my dead." She had made him hesitant about reopening the subject. Her sister was the most beautiful woman in England. A man never knows to what boundaries a woman's jealousy spreads. He feared lest, if he persisted, she might impute to him ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... potential pure cocaine production of 645 metric tons in 2004 marked the lowest level of Andean cocaine production in the past 10 years; Colombia conducts aggressive coca eradication campaign, but both Peruvian and Bolivian Governments are hesitant to eradicate coca in key growing areas; 376 metric tons of export-quality cocaine are documented to have been seized in 2003, and 26 metric tons disrupted (jettisoned or destroyed); consumption of export quality cocaine is estimated ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... would have made countless insinuations to a normal man. To some, it said golf; to others, a motor trip out to where a plethora of such bounties as it suggested might be available; and to others less fortunate—why, there was the "Ferry" just opening to hesitant crowds, with its band stand, its scenic railway, its forty-five minutes of vaudeville that was anything but mentally exhausting. It was an eloquent morning. But Joe turned a ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... deep hall and stretched hesitant fingers into the dusty quiet of the great East Indian room, gilding the soft tones of the faded chintz, touching very gently the polished furniture and the dim prints on the walls. He swung across the threshold without a word, ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... though to prolong the descent, they swerved to the right, cutting transversely the myriad foot-paths and sled roads which led down into the town. It was a mid-December day, clear and cold; and the hesitant high-noon sun, having laboriously dragged its pale orb up from behind the southern land-rim, balked at the great climb to the zenith, and began its shamefaced slide back beneath the earth. Its oblique rays refracted from the floating ...
— A Daughter of the Snows • Jack London
... an interior both interesting to explore and fascinating to talk about. Claire listened with a radiant display of interest, but she had her doubts as to whether any amount of money would make it worth while to undergo this sort of thing for life. She was still in this hesitant frame of mind when she entered Reigelheimer's Restaurant, and it perturbed her that she could not come to some definite decision on Mr Pickering, for those subtle signs which every woman can recognize and interpret told her that the latter, ...
— Uneasy Money • P.G. Wodehouse
... about my writing-case," said the corporal, in low and hesitant voice. "I kept mother's letters and some pictures and things I valued in it. It went with me up to the Big Horn camp all right, but when we started on the campaign and cut loose from the wagons I had to turn it over to Sergeant Haney. I saw him lock it in ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... be worse for it, father," she said, hesitant. "And so is Aunt Janet—poor Aunt Janet. She's so anxious about you, and ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... into Maggie's excited, imploring eyes, it had been borne in upon her carefully judging and painfully hesitant mind that there was better than a fifty per cent chance that Larry was right in his estimate of Maggie; that Maggie's inclination toward criminal adventure, her supreme self-confidence, all her bravado, were but ...
— Children of the Whirlwind • Leroy Scott
... into the snow. He paused a moment and shuddered. Had he lost his senses through the suffering the week had brought him? He shook himself and turned to his horse again. No silly vision should drag him across a snowdrift on such a night. He was going home to Tessibel. In hesitant quandary, he still stood staring west to the rail fence. Then, something impelled him to do the very thing he had decided would ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... to do Hallock an injustice," he went on, after a hesitant pause, "neither do I wish to dig up the past, for him or for anybody. I was hoping that you might know some of the inside details, and so make it easier for me to get at the truth. I can't believe that Hallock was culpably responsible for ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... Teola given her coffee from her own cup that winter night? Tessibel had not spoken to the minister's daughter since her father had been taken away to Auburn, and some of the intensity Tess had felt upon that one great day of her life came back to her as she stood hesitant, ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... Jim Bridger's arrival, and the swift rumor that he would serve as pilot for the train over the dangerous portion of the route ahead, spread an instantaneous feeling of relief throughout the hesitant encampment at this, the last touch with civilization east of the destination. He paused briefly at one or another wagon after he had made his own animals comfortable, laughing and jesting in his own independent ...
— The Covered Wagon • Emerson Hough
... the tale away for future laughter. The thought drove the sheriff mad. He swung savagely into the saddle and drove his horse at a dead run among the perilous going of that gorge. When he reached the plain he paused, hesitant between a bulldog desire to follow the trail single-handed into the mountains and run down the pair, and a knowledge that he who retreats has an added power that would make such a pursuit rash ...
— The Rangeland Avenger • Max Brand
... slow and hesitant. It spoke volumes for Miss Stone's state of mind. Hours of Greek history were in it, and long rows of tombs and temples—the Parthenon of gods and goddesses, with a few outlying scores of heroes and understudies. "The—Greek," she ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... nostrils, in the humid glowing of the inflamed eyes. A nausea of disgust swept over her. She fought it down. Then, with hypocrisy that amazed herself, she met his ardent stare boldly, though with a pretense of timidity. She spoke with a hesitant, remonstrant voice, as if in ...
— Heart of the Blue Ridge • Waldron Baily
... self-denying agony. Never once did he doubt this truth, and the knowledge gripped him with fingers of steel. Even as he stood there, looking back upon her quivering figure, it was no longer hate of Farnham which controlled; it was love for her. He took a step toward her, hesitant, uncertain, his heart a-throb with sympathy; yet what could he say? What could he do? Utterly helpless to comfort, unable to even suggest a way out, he drew back silently, closed the door behind him, and shut her in. He felt one clear, unalterable conviction—under ...
— Beth Norvell - A Romance of the West • Randall Parrish
... risked their prestige, to throw away the splendid privileged position which, at the outset of the struggle, we chanced to occupy in South-Eastern Europe. Every blunder into which petty municipal minds could fall when confronted with a wild revolutionary welter, marked the hesitant policy of the British Government. This aimless chaos of soul was the main cause of the woeful waste of our political advantages and enormous resources in the accomplishment of secondary ends which generally led nowhere. It was thus that they forfeited ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... in a voice more and more hesitant, "you must excuse me, but it is a long time since I have had good ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... at the head of a cavalcade—doors and windows wide with welcome and jubilant with applause. Newspapers chorused their enthusiasm; the public voiced universal approval; only a few of the more cultured critics seemed hesitant and doubtful. ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... not all so handicapped at the beginning need despair of learning to improve in speaking ability. By systems in which the results appear almost miraculous the dumb are now taught to speak. Stutterers and stammerers become excellent deliverers of speeches in public. Weak voices are strengthened. Hesitant expressions are made coherent. Such marvels of modern science belong, however, to special classes and institutions. They are cited here to prove that in language training today practically nothing is impossible to the teacher with knowledge and patience ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... the doll unceremoniously and sought her friend's cheeks. Looking up with big eyes into the face drawn close to her own, she replied in a strangely slow, hesitant manner. "In course I remembers ye, Smiles. Yo' air the nurse what lives with ... with thet thar doctor man ... in the big city, whar air monkeys thet ... clumb sticks an' ... an' doll babies what close thar eyes ... an' say ... an' say ... My head hurts me, Smiles, ...
— 'Smiles' - A Rose of the Cumberlands • Eliot H. Robinson
... hesitant suggestion, and even while she did it a wave of dread swept over her. The dead man was the same criminal "Slim" Jim Collins whom the cattleman had threatened in order to protect the Millikan girl. The facts that the ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... two days later Herr Weigand returned—a little more faded, a little more hesitant, but altogether, by no means unhappy. He was invited into her father's office for a long discussion. The result was that the two lovers fell into each others' arms while her father, trembling with impotent rage, hurled at them the fragments ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... not, however, show embarrassment, but looked at her with the hesitant yet sympathetic attentiveness of ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... By this time we learn that a total of eight hundred acres had been secured in Canada, that two thousand Negroes had gone thither, but that considerable hostility had been manifested on the part of the Canadians. Hesitant, the convention appointed an agent to investigate the situation. It expressed itself as strongly opposed to any national aid to the American Colonization Society and urged the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia—all of which activity, it is well to remember, ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... Garf looked hesitant, then waved the two to the rail with him. "See those?" he asked. They looked, and saw what seemed to be a flight of steps, carved from stone, old, and worn, starting abruptly just below the water level and leading downward. There was nothing ...
— Stairway to the Stars • Larry Shaw
... begin to order the baffling and teasing aspects, the illusive nature of the world. Why this ever failing, but never ending struggle against unseen odds to grasp and understand and live with the Divine? Why, between the two, the absolute and the changeless spirit, unseen but felt, and the hesitant and timid spirit of a man, would there seem to be a great gulf fixed? Because we are wrong. Because man finds the gulf within himself. He chafes at the limitations of time and space? Yes; but he chafes more at the mystery and weakness, the mingled deceitfulness and cunning and splendor ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... like a flash he acted. His grip on my throat loosened. His arm, swinging backward, warded off Elza's trembling, hesitant blow. The metal block, intended for his head, was knocked from her hand; it fell clattering to the floor. And reaching over, Tarrano gripped the vehicle's control lever, wrenched it bodily from its fastenings! Control of the vehicle was irrevocably lost! ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... a noisy racket. Exhaust pipes on roofs puffed out violent jets of steam; an automatic sawmill added a rhythmic screeching; a button factory shook the ground with the rumbling of its machines. She was looking up toward the Montmartre height, hesitant, uncertain whether to continue, when a gust of wind blew down a mass of sooty smoke that covered the entire street. She closed her eyes and held her breath. At that moment she heard the sound of hammers in ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... discovery, the peculiar position of the dead man, the loneliness of that deserted field in which he lay, shocked West and, for a moment left him strangely hesitant. Who was the man? What could have led up to the pitiful tragedy? Yet he advanced step by step nearer to the hideous object in the path. The man had been shot directly behind the right ear, killed instantly, no doubt, as the ...
— The Case and The Girl • Randall Parrish
... turn to glance curiously at him, for Vernon's tone was oddly constrained and hesitant as if he were endeavoring, awkwardly enough, to lead up to some point in his ...
— The Fifth Ace • Douglas Grant
... his sister. She would implore forgiveness for her sin of vanity and beg Tudie's intercession with Arthur. She had nearly steeled herself to this glorious contrition when she heard a warning squeal from the front gate, a slow step on the front walk, and hesitant ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... West and his guide had spent the night. Another chapter of the long story of the trail was written here. The sled and the guide had gone on south, but West had not been with them. His webs went wandering off at an angle, hesitant and uncertain. Sometimes they doubled across the track ...
— Man Size • William MacLeod Raine
... lender of money on mortgages, owner of Northern cut-over land, was a hesitant man in unpressed soft gray clothes, with bulging eyes in a milky face. His wife had bleached cheeks, bleached hair, bleached voice, and a bleached manner. She wore her expensive green frock, with its passementeried ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... narrowly, hanging upon her decision with the anxiety of a man proscribed and hoping against hope for pardon, he saw her eyes cloud and shift from his, her lips parted but hesitant; and before she could ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... himself properly in a drawing-room or at a table, were his mind harking back at every moment to the instructions contained in some volume on etiquette. He who must justify every act by reflection is condemned to the jerkiest and most hesitant of moral lives. Perceptional moral intuition must stand our friend, if there is to be a flow of conduct worthy ...
— A Handbook of Ethical Theory • George Stuart Fullerton
... on." There was, however, a hesitant note in Dean's voice. This trip East had been planned for a holiday—to find Gordon Sterrett in trouble exasperated ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... things of three stages, two may be tolerable, the first clouding of the water with the wine's red fire, or the final resolution of the two into one humane consistence: the intermediate course is, like all times of process, brumous and hesitant. After a dinner in the white piazza, shrinking slowly to blue under the keen young moon's eye, watched over jealously by the frowning bulk of Brunelleschi's globe—after a dinner of pasta con brodo, veal cutlets, olives, and a bottle of right Barbera, let me give you a pastel (this is ...
— Earthwork Out Of Tuscany • Maurice Hewlett
... was hesitant, even doubtful; the demand for cotton at high prices usually fell off rapidly and he had heard rumors of curtailed mill production. While, then, he hoped for high prices he advised the Farmers' League ...
— The Quest of the Silver Fleece - A Novel • W. E. B. Du Bois
... is a soft lisp in his speech which might fool strangers who do not know about the steel of his nerves and the keenness of his eye. He sat in a roomy office with a clean desk, toyed with a paper knife and made quick, sure, accurate decisions in a low hesitant voice that never backed track nor weakened before a disagreeable situation. He is the man who more than anyone else has laid out the spending of the major part of the first one hundred millions gathered in America by the Red Cross drive last summer. He held his ...
— The Martial Adventures of Henry and Me • William Allen White
... might be uttered with such preface, Heliodora smiled and bade the speaker continue. Again Marcian's head drooped; again his words became hesitant, vague. But their purpose at length grew unmistakable; unhappy that he was, he himself loved Veranilda, and the vehemence of his passion overcame his loyalty in friendship; never whilst he lived should Basil ...
— Veranilda • George Gissing |
