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Flirtation   /flərtˈeɪʃən/   Listen
Flirtation

noun
1.
Playful behavior intended to arouse sexual interest.  Synonyms: coquetry, dalliance, flirt, flirting, toying.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Flirtation" Quotes from Famous Books



... absent friends; - Not that elegant ladies, in fact, In genteel society ever detract, Or lend a brush when a friend is blacked, - At least as a mere malicious act, - But only talk scandal for fear some fool Should think they were bred at CHARITY school. Or, maybe, you like a little flirtation, Which even the most Don Juanish rake Would surely object to undertake At the same high pitch as an altercation. It's not for me, of course, to judge How much a deaf lady ought to begrudge; But half-a-guinea ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... "you will not be involved. I did not understand before why Bruce had deserted us lately. I see now that he has acted very properly. It was not his fault nor yours—this flirtation—preference—or whatever you may choose to call it. But Bruce knows the world, and knows just how long-lived such fancies are, and he intends that it shall be no hinderance to your marriage—making ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various

... remarks, she initiated him into the mysteries of licentious love, and, pushing Pao-yue into the room, she closed the door, and took her departure all alone. Pao-yue in a dazed state complied with the admonitions given him by the Fairy, and the natural result was, of course, a violent flirtation, the circumstances of which it would ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin

... and mainly a poet of the educated classes." He should have said "merely or mainly." He enjoins upon us to "define our terms" and "know the exact meanings of the terms we use"—which is absolute tautology. He says of flirtation—on which he seems an authority—that "I greatly fear, and am morally certain" it is as much perpetrated by men as by women. But if he fears he cannot be certain, and if he is certain he cannot fear. He ...
— Flowers of Freethought - (Second Series) • George W. Foote

... world than gossiping with a girl. She began to feel, after a time, that she actually disliked him. The station agent, Kid Follansbee, admired her exceedingly, and had timidly ventured some words of hopeful flirtation as a preliminary to more serious proposals. Two or three other youths of Carcajou only needed the slightest sign of encouragement, and there was a conductor of the passenger train who used to blow kisses at her, once in a while, from the steps ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick

... paint you in this light!" he said, all at once. "That is the dress I love best. Don't wear it often." The remark was slight enough as a pretty speech within the bounds of flirtation, but the tone in which he uttered it meant more, and the girl's womanly instinct told her that the dangerous limit in their "friendship" had been reached. He saw her turn pale. She looked away from him, and swallowed thoughts ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes

... correspondence began. It was easy for a young woman of Dorothy's discernment to see that here was no case for a long-distance flirtation, if she had wanted one. From the moment when she had flung her left hand into Waldron's right, and that other moment when she had told him with absolute truth that she was not afraid with him beside her, he had taken her at her word. She could not play with him, even if he had been near her; ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... Clifford, "you're a very different sort from the young Frenchwoman the doctor had here before you came—all paint and powder, busy making herself up whenever she thought you weren't looking, always ready for a flirtation." She made a grimace. "Not that she got very far with the doctor, I may tell you," she added, then nodding good-bye, joined her brother in ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... daughters unmarked by that provoking ease and compassionate familiarity, which tell them, better than words, that their day of influence has closed for ever. Let such unhappy men fly from the scenes of former pleasure and power, of former flirtation and gaiety, to the quieter and surer triumphs of a country town. Here crowds of young women, as certainly devoted to celibacy as the inmates of a nunnery, accustomed from necessity to make beaux out of the most unprecedented materials, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, Issue 353, January 24, 1829 • Various

... to disguise the fact, since we have it in cold print, that the acquaintance of the couple, begun at Naples in 1794 as a flirtation, developed rapidly, on the lady's side, into a love affair which was only ended by her death. In 1794, when it all began, Lady Bessborough was thirty-two, had been married for fourteen years, and had four children. Granville Gower was twenty, well born, ...
— In a Green Shade - A Country Commentary • Maurice Hewlett

... dozen of the gipsy women came padding uproad, fostered watchfully by Rustum Khan, who seemed convinced that murder was intended somehow, somewhere. They brought along horses with them—very good horses—and Fred prefers a horse trade to triangular flirtation on any day of ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy

... that while Evelyn's romantic eyes and gold hair were sufficient to win his regard, he had availed himself of a dozen devices to tempt her. Suddenly his face grew grave, and he asked himself how this flirtation was to end. As a sufficient excuse for seeing her he was taking music lessons; he wrote to her every other day and often sent her books and music. They had met in London.... He had been observed walking with her, and ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore

... not come home nor did Smike reappear; but neither circumstance, to say the truth, had any great effect upon the little party, who were all in the best humour possible. Indeed, there sprung up quite a flirtation between Miss La Creevy and Tim Linkinwater, who said a thousand jocose and facetious things, and became, by degrees, quite gallant, not to say tender. Little Miss La Creevy, on her part, was in high ...
— The Life And Adventures Of Nicholas Nickleby • Charles Dickens

... asked with almost a tone of anxiety in his voice. "Did you have some violent flirtation with someone at this stage? and you think I shall be annoyed—but indeed I shall not, because I do fully realize that whatever you did was my fault for leaving you alone—Tell me, Sabine, you ...
— The Man and the Moment • Elinor Glyn

... Peter had fallen into one of his reasoning moods, he asked himself whether it was fair to carry the flirtation any further with the girl snuggled beside him. He knew that the hearts of Oriental girls open somewhat more widely to the touch of affection than their Western sisters. And it was not in the nature of women of the East to indulge extensively ...
— Peter the Brazen - A Mystery Story of Modern China • George F. Worts

... young, very young to be unhappy? She began to fight a little with herself and Providence in savage mood; favored the crimped hair and Scotch plaids again, tried a nutting-party and a sewing-circle, as well as a little flirtation with Jim Snow. This lasted for another week. At the end of that time she went and sat down alone one noon on a pile of kindlings in the ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

... feeling nature would be objectively lost in gratitude, and silent. She had some public instincts, it is true; she hated the Lutherans, and longed for the church's triumph over them; but in the main her idea of religion seems to have been that of an endless amatory flirtation—if one may say so without irreverence— between the devotee and the deity; and apart from helping younger nuns to go in this direction by the inspiration of her example and instruction, there is absolutely no human ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James

... had invited him. The House would be up by that time. It was a delightful season for the Forest. The heather would be in bloom on all the open heights, the glades of Mark Ash would be a solemn world of greenery and shadow, a delicious place for picnics, flirtation, and gipsy tea-drinkings. Lord Mallow had only seen the Forest in the winter. It would be a grand opportunity ...
— Vixen, Volume III. • M. E. Braddon

... unwilling witness of a flirtation he was powerless to prevent. Considering her limited opportunities, Miss Turnbull displayed a proficiency which astonished him. Even the sergeant was amazed, and ...
— Odd Craft, Complete • W.W. Jacobs

... of a flirtation. She's all intellect and ambition. I enjoy going there for I'm almost as much at home with her as I am ...
— Black Oxen • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... the misery that it brings, there would be less going out with young ladies, to look at the flowers at night." Please give your attention to this piece of poetry. This is the meaning of it:—When a young man and a young lady set up a flirtation without the consent of their parents, they think that it will all be very delightful, and find themselves very much deceived. If they knew what a sad and cruel world this is, they would not act as they do. The quotation ...
— Tales of Old Japan • Algernon Bertram Freeman-Mitford

... from London and Paris, and ill at one's ease, Away in the heart of the blue Pyrenees, Where a call from the doctor, a stroll to the bath, A ride through the hills on a hack like a lath, A cigar, a French novel, a tedious flirtation, Are all a man finds for his day's occupation, The whole case, believe me, is totally changed, And a letter may alter the plans we arranged Over-night, for the slaughter of time—a wild beast, Which, though classified ...
— Lucile • Owen Meredith

... even including herself. She knew that what she had seen last night was not the evidence of a mere flirtation or passing fancy, and reproached herself bitterly because she had asked Edith ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed

... illusions. You a Lilith of the red earth, not of Adam; you a woman sweet and passionate and kind, but soulless, too, and fickle; and I a trained man, made as soulless by experience, we met and agreed, without words, to break a lance in a flirtation. And that both lances were splintered doesn't matter now. We had joy in the encounter, didn't we, and more after each surrendered captive? But it has been only mimic warfare. It has not ...
— A Man and a Woman • Stanley Waterloo

... Flirtation is not a pleasant word, and it is one which we are apt to think applies chiefly to the manners of girls, vain of their personal appearance, and wanting in sense or education. Beatrice would have thought herself infinitely above it; but what ...
— Henrietta's Wish • Charlotte M. Yonge

... fathoms deep in a flirtation with Carter Nelson; while below him, Ruth, in the daintiest of gowns and the largest of hats, was wasting her sweetness on the ...
— Sandy • Alice Hegan Rice

... so little of a wit titre'; and Mrs. Bulwer-Lytton, handsome, insolent, and unamiable; and Allan Cunningham, 'immense fun'; and Thomas Hood, 'a grave-looking personage, the picture of ill-health'; and her old critical enemy, Lord Jeffrey, with whom Lady Morgan started a violent flirtation. 'When he comes to Ireland,' she writes, 'we are to go to Donnybrook Fair together; in short, having cut me down with his tomahawk as a reviewer, he smothers me with roses as a man. I always say of my enemies before we ...
— Little Memoirs of the Nineteenth Century • George Paston

... good-natured Briton, he becomes quite soft and tender with the little creatures, pats gently their little golden heads, and watches with unfailing pleasure their ways, their sports, their jokes, laughter, caresses. Enfans terribles come home from Eton; young Miss practising her first flirtation; poor little ragged Polly making dirt-pies in the gutter, or staggering under the weight of Jacky, her nursechild, who is as big as herself—all these little ones, patrician and plebeian, meet with kindness from this kind heart, and are watched with curious nicety ...
— John Leech's Pictures of Life and Character • William Makepeace Thackeray

... again, and now on the first occasion when they might have had a real conversation, here he was spending the whole time laughing and talking with Julia Kean. She was glad of the diversion of Mrs. Pace's entrance, as it necessarily caused some cessation of what looked to her like a flirtation between Mr. ...
— Molly Brown's Orchard Home • Nell Speed

... give me a sly flirtation By the light of a chandelier—— With music to play in the pauses, And nobody very near; Or a seat on a silken sofa, With a glass of pure old wine, And mamma too blind to discover The small ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various

... all heavily veiled, their faces jealously hidden from the eyes of men, except when some giddy girl with a taste for flirtation allowed her veil to slip down as if by accident, and one then, as a general thing, beheld a ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton

... might almost have taken a lesson from the delicacy he practised. For two or three weeks her grandson was well-nigh a blushing boy again. He watched from behind the Figaro, he admired and desired and held his tongue. He found himself not in the least moved to a flirtation; he had no wish to trouble the waters he proposed to transfuse into the golden cup of matrimony. Sometimes a word, a look, a gesture of Euphemia's gave him the oddest sense of being, or of seeming at least, almost bashful; for she had a way of not dropping her eyes according ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... people's secrets, and kept her own to herself. Yet, after two months of assiduities, she saw with a vague dread in the depths of her soul that M. de Montriveau understood nothing of the subtleties of flirtation after the manner of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; he was taking a Parisienne's ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac

... no redder danger signal than a sight of the object of his affections standing or sitting contentedly with another man and neither of them saying as much as "Boo" to the other. He may, with more equanimity, regard and countenance a genuine flirtation, full of laughter and eye-making. The first time Mr. Blagdon saw them together he thought; the second time he felt; the third time he came forward graciously smiling. The web might be in danger from the beetle; the fly at the point of kicking ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... triumphs that would equal hers." Eminent painters wished to make a study of her face. Authors who had received the prizes of the Academy for grave historical works sent her adulatory verses. "May I—flirtation—wid you—loavely meess?" asked one of "the immortal forty," ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 86, February, 1875 • Various

... longer a beardless boy, but a fairly well-grown and good-looking youth—was a constant visitor at the Row. Aggie Wilson had taught him the use of his tongue, but Peter was not the man to use it in idle flirtation—nor Aggie the girl to listen if he had done so. They had both seen too much of the stern side of life to ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne

... my comradeship. Now, a fancy for this child-woman would rob me of him. Instead of being piqued by the Contessa's growing preference for the Boy, as I ought to have been by all the rules of the game of flirtation, I was conscious of anger against her ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson

... have frequented the garden of Doctor Rappaccini no doubt recall with perfect distinctness the quaint old city of Padua. They remember its miles and miles of dim arcade over-roofing the sidewalks everywhere, affording excellent opportunity for the flirtation of lovers by day and the vengeance of rivals by night. They have seen the now vacant streets thronged with maskers, and the Venetian Podesta going in gorgeous state to and from the vast Palazzo della Ragione. They have witnessed ringing tournaments in those sad, empty squares, and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 117, July, 1867. • Various

... by his success in the world; and it may also have entered into the young man's mind (his uncle's perpetual hints serving not a little to encourage the notion) that Miss Amory was tolerably well disposed to renew the little flirtation which had been carried on in the early days of both of them, by the banks of the rural Brawl. But he was little disposed to marriage, he said, at that moment, and, adopting some of his uncle's worldly tone, ...
— The History of Pendennis, Vol. 2 - His Fortunes and Misfortunes, His Friends and His Greatest Enemy • William Makepeace Thackeray

... me you've been flirting with Lieutenant CASSIO. Now that won't do. Remember that under the Fifteenth Amendment I have the right, being a colored man, of doing pretty much as I choose. If this flirtation isn't stopped promptly I'll go to Indiana, divorce you, and marry EMILIA. Do you know where ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 39., Saturday, December 24, 1870. • Various

... up by a flirtation in one of Chicago's large summer amusement parks, were sold into captivity. This is one of the most appalling cases that has yet come to our notice. These girls were procured upon promises of marriage and a trip to New York, all of which was fine ...
— Fighting the Traffic in Young Girls - War on the White Slave Trade • Various

... then visiting Mrs. Thayer. She soon began to show much partiality for Deborah (or Robert), and as she seemed to be versed in the arts of coquetry, Robert felt no scruples in paying close attention to one so volatile and fond of flirtation; she also felt a natural curiosity to learn within how short a time a maiden's fancy might ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler

... you are. It's a promise of Kath's. And shan't I be proud to show you around? You shall see Flirtation Walk the first thing. It's what the ladies admire the most, at the Point. ...
— Lady Betty Across the Water • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson

... her sacred keeping at some one time or other; and love stories! why, she must have been cram full of them—from the heart-breaking affair of poor little Polly Skittles, the laundress' pretty daughter, up to Baby Blake's last flirtation. ...
— She and I, Volume 1 • John Conroy Hutcheson

... if Marie Deland was feeling as sick about it as he was. Micky was in the middle of an interesting flirtation with Marie, which bade fair to develop into something deeper with careful engineering on the part of her family, for Micky was a catch, and though so far he had proved himself singularly adroit in avoiding mothers with marriageable daughters, the Delands were beginning to pat each other on the back ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres

... inch or so shorter, he'd have had to break his clinch in some of them whirls, and then there'd been a big dent in the floor. He seems just built for the job, though. In and out, round and round, through the Parisienne, the flirtation, and all the other frills, he pilots her safe, bendin' and swayin' to the music, his number ten feet glidin' easy, and kind of a smirky, satisfied look on that sappy mug of his; while Marjorie, she simply lets herself go for all she's worth, her eyes sparklin', and the pink and white ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... interests me," said Hadria. "It is a tiny field for the exercise of the creative forces. Every one has some form of active amusement. Some like golf, others flirtation. I ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird

... him to place an unfamiliar quotation or assign a painted tablet to the right artist. One tells how he was able to find a man in a crowd when everyone else had failed. And the last and most amusing is an anecdote of a court lady who tried to inveigle him into a flirtation with her maid by sending the latter, richly dressed and perfumed, to sit very close to him when he was at the temple. Kenko congratulates himself on having been adamant. He was ...
— Mince Pie • Christopher Darlington Morley

... then; but if so, I have committed that sin most unconsciously, and, I believe, for the first time in my life. I have had but one lover, and I accepted him, the very moment that he spoke to me. I can, at any rate, have but little flirtation to answer for." ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... roundly bland in face and murky in eye, seemed to notice their absence, and kept his glances towards the door, while Paul engaged in conversation with Dona Anna—if that word could convey an impression of a conventionality which that good-humored young lady converted into an animated flirtation at the second sentence with a single glance and two shakes of her fan. And then Milly fluttered in—a vision of school-girl freshness and white tulle, and a moment later—with a pause of expectation—a tall, graceful figure, that ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... and was fighting, even as I, to conquer a passion that could never be realized? which had no right to exist? Surely, young and fair as she was, she could be no vain and shallow coquette, venturing upon flirtation for the mere excitement of it? The calm self-possession of her nature, her marked pride and strength of character, stamped this as impossible. Honesty and pure, true womanhood were woven into her every word and act; that indefinable something which ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish

... foolish virgin among the damsels—and there were some foolish ones in those days, though not so many as now—Palmer would begin a flirtation, kept up until he departed. This was only one of the many mean traits of the man that lessened ...
— Watch Yourself Go By • Al. G. Field

... weariness and disgust on Sterne's part. Other evidence of an indisputable character shows that he was, at least and best, an extravagant and mawkish philanderer with any girl or woman who would join in a flirtation: and while there is no evidence against Mrs. Sterne's character in the ordinary sense, and hardly any of value against her temper, she seems (which is perhaps not wonderful) to have latterly preferred to live apart from her husband, and to have put him ...
— The English Novel • George Saintsbury

... George Trent, with whom she was having an amusing flirtation, which would certainly have been more than amusing if he had been only a quarter as rich as ...
— The Castle Of The Shadows • Alice Muriel Williamson

... go to confessing your sins," said Doctor Sloane crossly. "You're coming out of the woods all right, and you'll be sorry if you tell her too, much. I'll begin a little flirtation with you, Miss Laura, if you please." And he motioned to her to follow ...
— The Flirt • Booth Tarkington

... yonder"—he nodded toward Jarvis Hammon and Lilas Lynn—"strikes you as a—well, as a flirtation of the ordinary sort. In one way it is; in another way it is something very different, for he's in earnest. He thinks he is injuring no one but himself with this business, and he is willing to pay the price; but the ...
— The Auction Block • Rex Beach

... the handsome young man in the down train, the meeting with whom Gertrude had not even allowed her little sister to witness, and the stories grew and grew on that foundation, till every picnic or tennis party that Gertrude had attended that summer, was transformed into a separate flirtation or supplied an anecdote to ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh

... stars in comparison with her eyes, she cares for none of her worshippers. She smiles upon them, but the smile is no deeper than the lips; she flirts with them, but stops at that sharp, invisible line which separates a flirtation from a compromising earnestness; she is a coquette, but not a jilt. If she encourages all, it is because she prefers none. Her heart has never been touched, and she knows that none of her admirers in her own country can hope to touch it. Her rivals scornfully assert that she has no ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... and gave a meaning smile. Her friendship with the signorino had begun when he was a lad and she a charming married woman; like many another friendship, it had begun with a flirtation, and perhaps (who knows?) she ...
— Stories By English Authors: Italy • Various

... Stories by popular authors, Set of Dominoes, 15 Portraits of Female Celebrities, Dictionary of Dreams, 20 Popular Songs, 134 Conundrums, 276 Autograph Album Selections, 67 Magical experiments, Lovers' Telegraph, Guide to Flirtation, Golden Wheel Fortune Teller, Magic and Mystic Age Tables, Game of Authors—43 pieces, with full directions—2 Morse Telegraph Alphabets, 11 Parlor Games, Calendar for current year, Games of Shadow Buff, Letters, etc., the Deaf and ...
— Golden Days for Boys and Girls, Vol. XIII, Nov. 28, 1891 • Various

... after all. Other lovers are hugely interested. They strike the nicest balance between pity and approval, when they see people aping the greatness of their own sentiments. It is an understood thing in the play, that while the young gentlefolk are courting on the terrace, a rough flirtation is being carried on, and a light, trivial sort of love is growing up, between the footman and the singing chambermaid. As people are generally cast for the leading parts in their own imaginations, the reader can apply ...
— Virginibus Puerisque • Robert Louis Stevenson

... inconsequent. Now they had to do with Daisy Ellington, the New York chorus girl whose mobile, piquant face was helping to make the Lunar reels popular. Steve was engaged in a whirlwind flirtation with her which both of them were enjoying extremely. He liked her slangy audacity, the frank good-fellowship with which she had met him. Daisy was a good sport. She might pretend to sigh for the lights of Manhattan, but she was having a tremendously ...
— Steve Yeager • William MacLeod Raine

... happy marriages sprang from the acquaintance at Brook Farm. There, in a few weeks or months, a better knowledge could be formed, a truer and more absolute and certain estimate of character, than by years of fashionable flirtation. And here let me add, that the women were always well dressed: there were no party dresses, all shine, lace and glitter, and household wrappers all slouched, torn and drabbled. The situation of woman was such as to stimulate her ever ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman

... gentry, were regarded by Pargeter as hopelessly dowdy and "out of it," so none of them had been invited. With Laurence Vanderlyn alone had the young mistress of the house had any link of mutual interests or sympathies; but of flirtation, as that protean word was understood by those about them, there had ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes

... porches and vestibules of the temple lounged the Amazonian guard, intent only on irreverent amusement, even in the form of a grotesque and grim flirtation here and there with the custodians of the temple, who have charge of the sacred fire that burns before the altar. About eighty-five years ago this fire went out. It was a calamity of direful presage, and thereupon ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens

... Laura's over-wrought picture. Christine was no fool, Linburne no villain. There was probably a little flirtation, and a good deal of gossip. But that would all be put a stop to by the announcement of Christine's engagement to Hickson. He did not even feel annoyed at his cousin's suggestion that he did not know his way about the world. He knew ...
— Ladies Must Live • Alice Duer Miller

... of his position, and finding that Temple, who valued his services, was slow in finding him preferment, he left Moor Park in order to carry out his resolve to go into the Church. He was ordained, and obtained the prebend of Kilroot, near Belfast, where he carried on a flirtation with a Miss Waring, whom he called Varina. But in May 1696 Temple made proposals which induced Swift to return to Moor Park, where he was employed in preparing Temple's memoirs and correspondence for publication, ...
— The Journal to Stella • Jonathan Swift

... a little flirtation, to pass the time, on both our parts. A woman of forty who is a beauty and a flirt has no time to waste, and Lady MacNairne is not wasteful. She was the handsomest woman at Kinloch Towers, my cousin Dave Norman's place, and a Dutchman was a ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson

... Sir Norman observed Hubert, lying very much at his ease wrapped in his cloak, on the ground, and chatting languidly with a pert and pretty attendant of the fair Mistress Stuart. He cut short his flirtation, however, abruptly enough, and sprang to his feet as he saw Sir Norman, while George immediately darted off and ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming

... least none exciting enough to warm him thoroughly. Now I am very sorry I have told you all this: it is not a nice story; but it is your own fault if I have bored you. Besides, Madame de Verzenay will never forgive me for monopolizing you so long. I do think she does me the honor to believe in a flirtation." ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence

... Eulalie swelled like an incensed turkey, but the mutiny was quelled: the conceited coquetry and futile flirtation of the first bench were exchanged for a taciturn sullenness, much more convenient to me, and the rest of ...
— The Professor • (AKA Charlotte Bronte) Currer Bell

... young wife; but the only part of the arrangement which was not agreeable to the latter was having to entertain Major Guthrie Brimston sometimes during his lady's absence, and the lady herself when she stayed to tea. For there was really no harm in the flirtation, as Evadne was acute enough to perceive. Mrs. Guthrie Brimston was one of those women who pride themselves upon having a train of admirers, and are not above robbing other women of the companionship ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand

... A flirtation between the Private and ESTELLE is at once begun, from which it appears that she came to catch a glimpse of the Colonel, who wants to marry her. She and the Private sit on the table, and fall instantaneously in love. As soon as they are well in, the Lancers return, ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 9, May 28, 1870 • Various

... doubtless 'our friend had been epris by some fair Austrian blond;' and the suggestion filled me with shame. Who knew but it might be true—that the man fell in love with every pretty new face—for mine was called beautiful then—and that after an entertaining season of flirtation he had bid me adieu? Of course I blamed myself for having been so confiding as to be deceived by a handsome adventurer without principle or honor. I cannot tell you what agony I suffered. I begged Helen to go on to Naples, for Rome had become very hateful to me. But at Rome, as you know, Helen ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various

... report," said the general. "It was a mere girlish flirtation—very dignified and proper," he hastened to add. "I don't mean to suggest that you were at ...
— The Price She Paid • David Graham Phillips

... steamer-chair, but not to count raindrops. He had food for new and most irritating reflections. The girl's refusal to take his cue and ignore the very mild flirtation that had occurred on the car-platform placed him in a situation at once awkward and embarrassing. He rather prided himself on never taking advantage of any tribute of admiration that might be tendered him by the less experienced of her sex. On more than one occasion in the past he had ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... dreamed of any warmer feeling than kindness on the one side and gratitude on the other; and this unconsciousness was her greatest charm, especially to Captain John, who hated coquettes, and shunned the silly girls who wasted time in idle flirtation when they had far better and wholesomer pastimes to enjoy. The handsome sailor was a favorite, being handy at all sorts of fun, and the oldest of the young men at the Point. He was very courteous in his ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott

... he displayed it, he seemed to be rather proud of it; but immediately afterwards, his mood veered round again to one of bitter resentment. To illustrate the injustice she had been guilty of, and his own long-suffering, he related, at length, the story of his flirtation with Ephie, and the infinite pains he had been at to keep Louise in ignorance of what was happening. He grew very tender with himself as he told it. For, according to him, the whole affair had come about without ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson

... where everything had been painted, described, modelled, so he sailed for Tahiti, landing at Papeete. Even there he found the taint of European ideas, and after the funeral of King Pomare and an interlude of flirtation with an absinthe-drinking native princess, niece of the departed royalty (he made a masterly portrait of her), he fled to the interior and told his experiences in Noa Noa, The Land of Lovely Scents. This little book, illustrated with appropriate ...
— Ivory Apes and Peacocks • James Huneker

... liberated shop assistants. Jimmy walked slowly, and, owing perhaps to that fact, he got more than one glance, encouraging him to begin an acquaintance with young ladies in cheap and showy raiment. But none of them made the slightest appeal to him. He had no taste for an insipid flirtation with a girl who would probably play havoc with the aspirates. He had met many women far less innocent than these, and there had been more than one passage in his life which he did not recall with pride; and yet, ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt

... contempt for the average existence. The tinkle of the music appeared exquisitely tedious in its superficiality. He could rot remain in the hall because of the incorrectness of his attire, and the staircase was blocked, to a timid man, by elegant couples apparently engaged in the act of flirtation. He turned, through a group of attendant waiters, into the passage leading to the small smoking-room which adjoined the discreetly situated bar. This smoking-room, like a club, warm and bright, was empty, but in passing he had caught ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett

... chewinks, a song sparrow (one of the few that I saw in Florida), savanna sparrows, myrtle birds, redpoll warblers, a phoebe, and two flickers. The last-named birds, by the way, are never backward about displaying their tender feelings. A treetop flirtation is their special delight (I hope my readers have all seen one; few things of the sort are better worth looking at), and here, in the absence of trees, they had taken to the ...
— A Florida Sketch-Book • Bradford Torrey

... giant, whom I had not seen since his childhood, was merely understood to be carrying on a conspicuous, but in all probability the most innocent, flirtation in a Swiss hotel; and here was I, on mere second-hand hearsay, crossing half Europe to spoil his perfectly legitimate sport! I did not examine my project from the unknown lady's point of view; it made me ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung

... and towards the north and east of the plain is Fort Clinton; on its east front stands a monument erected in 1828 by the Corps of Cadets to Kosciusko, while "Flirtation Walk," on the river side of the academy, leads to Kosciusko Garden, so named because it was much frequented by the Polish hero. On the parade ground is Victory Monument (78 ft. high), erected in 1874 as ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous

... assumed an orange hue as he overheard this domestic detail; but not daring to contradict the facts, he prudently turned a deaf ear to them, and attempted to carryon a flirtation with Lady Juliana through the medium of Cupid, whom he had ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier

... not approve," said Fanny, with the dimmest possible ideas of what croquet was, and believing it a wicked flirtation trap that figured ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge

... treats all artists, male and female, in the same friendly and unaffected manner. There is never the least soupcon of condescension in the one case or flirtation in the other, but in both a lively and often unexpectedly well-informed interest in the play or other artistic performance of the occasion, and in the actors' or actresses' personal records. The nationality of the artist has apparently nothing to do with this interest. The Emperor invites ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw

... was charmed without knowing it. Let us do her full justice. She had not the remotest idea of opening a flirtation with Sir Lionel Bertram. She had looked on him as the future father-in-law of her own dear child; never as anything more: no idea of becoming Lady Bertram had ever for an instant flashed upon her imagination. But, nevertheless, by degrees the warrior's attentions became pleasant ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... at the sink-room window. Thousands of years ago, Theseus left Ariadne tearing the ripples of her amber-bright hair, and tossing her white arms with the tossing surf, in a vain agony of distraction and appeal: poets have sung the flirtation, painters have painted it; the story is an eternal legend of pain and passion, illuminated with lucent tints of age and the warm South, outlined with the statuesque purity of classic scenery and classic diction: but I myself never for a moment believed ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 37, November, 1860 • Various

... the reverse of all this, and without vanity the best-dressed woman wherever I go. Last night I wore a blue satin trimmed fully with magnificent point lace—light-blue velvet hat and feather, with an aigrette of sapphires and diamonds. Voila! Lord Jeffrey came up to me, and we had such a flirtation! When he comes to Ireland we are to go to Donnybrook Fair together: in short, having cut me down with his tomahawk as a reviewer, he smothers me with roses as a man. I always say of my enemies before we meet, 'Let me at them!'" Of the same soiree she writes again: "There was Miss Jane Porter, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various

... sudden sounds that instantly die away—if you wanted staccato, it was to be had by a proper management of the bow, and you might also have notes as long as you please. The Viol da Gamba is the only instrument, and Abel the prince of musicians! This, and occasionally a little flirtation with the Fiddle, continued some years; when, as ill-luck would have it, he heard Crosdill, but by some irregularity of conduct he neither took up nor bought the Violoncello. All his passion for the Bass was vented in descriptions of Crosdill's tone ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart

... high birth brought her admirers. The well-known misfortunes of the house, and her father and brother's bad reputation, constituted an unsurmountable barrier around her. Her feelings were often touched by those who only paid her attention out of idleness, or love of flirtation. She was certainly not a typical beauty: she was wanting in gracefulness of figure, plumpness of form, and brightness of complexion. But in spite of her slight, and not at all well formed figure, and the constant ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds

... none of the languor of their continental sisters, but are overflowing with vivacity and spirit. We remember these buds of humanity at the church door; they seemed to be "spoiling" for a chance flirtation, looking out from deep black eyes full of roguishness. Within the dimly-lighted church the smell of burning incense, the sharp tinkling of the bell before the distant altar, the responsive kneeling and bowing of the worshipers, the dull murmur of the ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou

... they were trained by the same precocious successes, only six years apart in age, and beginning with that hearty mutual aversion which is so often the parent of love, in impulsive natures like theirs. Their flirtation was platonic, but chronic; and whenever poor, heroic, desolate Clemence de Maille was sicker than usual, these cousins were walking side by side in the Tuileries gardens, and dreaming, almost in silence, of what might be, while ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Number 9, July, 1858 • Various

... deal because of Janina, sighed deeply, and wheedled him at every opportunity. She brought in the coffee and arrack and poured it for him herself. While doing so she fawned upon him, touched his hands and arms, as though accidentally, lowered her eyes, and kept up a continual flirtation, trying to awaken some ...
— The Comedienne • Wladyslaw Reymont

... attractive than this window. The milliner was young and pretty, and seemed to have a cousin equally young and pretty. Poor, lonely, friendless creatures, it was not surprising they should welcome a little flirtation. The bicycle which so swiftly carries the young man of the present day beyond the penetrating vision of his aunt or tutor has much to ...
— Hodge and His Masters • Richard Jefferies

... purpose. I had felt her physical attraction, and I knew that only by putting myself beyond its pale could I be true to my own convictions as to her venality. She was the kind of woman to whom any man, even such a one as I, is fish for her net. A girl may whet her appetite by coquetry and deprave it by flirtation, setting at last such a value upon her skill at seduction that she counts that day lost in which some male creature is not brought into subjection to her wiles. As I thought over the conversation later in the privacy of my bedroom ...
— Paradise Garden - The Satirical Narrative of a Great Experiment • George Gibbs

... delight in the mere surface play of life that she could, for instance, be interested in that somewhat serious by-play called "flirtation," or take any delight in the exercise of those little arts of pleasing and winning which are none the less genuine and charming because they are not intellectual, Ruth, herself, had never suspected until she went to Fallkill. She had believed it her duty to subdue her gaiety of temperament, and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... habitually rigid under the demands of domestic economy, indulged itself with a certain agreeable laxity on this particular point. She liked her young friend just as he was; she humored him, flattered him, laughed at him, caressed him—did everything but advise him. It was a flirtation without the benefits of a flirtation. She was too old to let him fall in love with her, which might have done him good; and her inclination was to keep him young, so that the nonsense he talked might never transgress a certain line. It was quite conceivable that poor Cecilia should ...
— Roderick Hudson • Henry James

... foolish flirtation—just the snatching at something to fill his empty days. Everard Barett's heart had been his wife's all along. He knew it for a certainty, looking at the woman and her child together, kneeling before them, with a sudden conviction of his own ...
— A Sheaf of Corn • Mary E. Mann

... and proceed to some well-known locality, usually a neighbouring plain, to witness the sports—which consist of horse-racing, "tailing the bull," "running the cock," and the like. The intervals are filled up by gambling, smoking, and flirtation. ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid

... confined creature in the world! I have been fighting my way up for the last four years, and have not allowed myself the liberty of one flirtation;—not often even the recreation of a natural laugh. And now I shouldn't wonder if I don't find myself falling back a year or two, just because I have allowed you to come and see me on a Sunday morning. When I told Lotta that you were coming, ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope

... trying to get up a flirtation with me, after all, and his tender looks and gallant speeches were only intended to draw me out! How glad I am I never gave him the smallest encouragement! What should I have done if he had guessed my secret? Yet ...
— Miss Dexie - A Romance of the Provinces • Stanford Eveleth

... usual of late, had turned at once upon Irene, and he had lost no time in giving Aunts Juley and Hester his opinion with regard to this rumour he heard was going about. No—as he said—she might want a bit of flirtation—a pretty woman must have her fling; but more than that he did not believe. Nothing open; she had too much good sense, too much proper appreciation of what was due to her position, and to the family! No sc..., he was going to say 'scandal' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... complicated for public reference. It was certainly true enough that he and May got no nearer to one another; if the break referred to existed somewhere, its effect was very plain; how could it display itself more strikingly than in making the lady prefer Quisante's weaselly flirtation to the accomplished and enviable homage of Weston Marchmont? And preferred it she had, for one hour of life at least. Fanny felt the anger which we suffer when another shows indifference towards what we should consider ...
— Quisante • Anthony Hope

... watched the incipient flirtation commencing between the viscount and the heiress was Beatrice Middleton. She had come late. She had had all the children to see properly fed and put to bed before she could begin to dress herself. And one restless little ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... sense of honour does not stand in the way of a flirtation with Morris, I shall be much astonished if Horace's does not make itself felt one way or another. However, it is no concern of mine; manage ...
— My Little Lady • Eleanor Frances Poynter

... like a madman on the balcony of the Cataract, because Lady Flora ran away for half an hour in broad daylight, to Prospect Point, with an old friend of her father's, oelat fifty and incurably an invalid. Ah, well—so it has been from the days of the first flirtation (always except that of Adam and Eve, when there was neither male nor female rival in the neighborhood), and so it will be to the last—with those arrogant, unreasonable, unsatisfied "lords of ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... woman and a very merry one. The waiter was a good-looking young fellow of about five-and-twenty, and between him and Signora Bonvicino—for we will say this was the clerk's name—there sprang up a violent flirtation, all open and above board. The waiter was evidently very fond of her, but said the most atrociously impudent things to her from time to time. Dining under the veranda at the next table I heard the Signora complain that the cutlets were burnt. So they were—very badly burnt. The waiter looked ...
— Alps and Sanctuaries of Piedmont and the Canton Ticino • Samuel Butler

... an old-fashioned wife, but young and beautiful. She was, however, so very old-fashioned that she went to bed at ten and rose at six; dressed in a cap and gown of her own making; respected and loved her husband; discouraged flirtation; and when assailed by any improper advances, instead of showing temper or conceited airs, quietly and tranquilly seated herself to some modest household duty till the assailant felt the irresistible power of modesty and ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook, Vol. 3 • E. Cobham Brewer

... she had chosen this tantalizing situation of an inaccessible matron's form when so many others offered, it was beyond me to discover. The whole affair ended innocently enough, when the lady left the town with her husband and child: she seemed to regard our acquaintance as a flirtation; yet it was anything ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy

... Mordaunt, when they had left the table, and returned to their room, "you got up quite a flirtation with Miss Green. It will be a good match for you. She's got money, and isn't more than twice as old ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger

... look at her, and Pixie's clear eyes met his in a full frank gaze which held no shadow of embarrassment. Here was something quite new—a girl who could speak about love to a young man without a trace of self-consciousness or flirtation, yet with an earnestness which demonstrated a keen personal interest. Stanor had many girl friends with whom he had often discussed the subject, but invariably a certain amount of self-consciousness had crept in, which had shown itself alternately ...
— The Love Affairs of Pixie • Mrs George de Horne Vaizey

... bright moving patch on the vast expanses of snow. Once, at some distance from the village, two tale-tellers observed a man on skis careering in the neighbourhood of the sleigh. It was Captain Deverax. The flirtation, therefore, was growing warmer and warmer. The hotels hummed with the tidings of it. But the Countess never said anything; nor could anything be extracted from her by even the most experienced gossips. She was an agreeable ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett

... else to be delighted about. He had divined pretty clearly that Miss Tancred's society would be the only entertainment offered to him during his stay, and the most outrageous flirtation would be justifiable in the circumstances; he had seen himself driven to it in sheer desperation and self-defense; he had longed hopelessly, inexpressibly, for the return of the absconding deity; he had looked on Miss ...
— The Return of the Prodigal • May Sinclair

... give pause to Russia, Bismarck even indulged in a passing flirtation with England. At the close of 1879, Lord Dufferin, then British ambassador at St. Petersburg, was passing through Berlin, and the Chancellor invited him to his estate at Varzin, and informed him that Russian overtures had been made to France through General Obretcheff, "but Chanzy [French ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... saw the possibility of that motive as soon as I heard Milly Saker's story, and learnt that Hazel Rath had lived for some years in the moat-house. Young Heredith and she must have been thrown together a lot before the war, and there was doubtless a flirtation between them which probably developed into an intrigue. There are all the materials at hand for it—a well-born idle young man, a girl educated above her station, a lonely country-house, and plenty of opportunity. I know the type of girl well. These half-educated ...
— The Hand in the Dark • Arthur J. Rees

... correspondence at red heat was kept up for several weeks, is long before this entirely out of your regard,—not so much by reason of the six months' disparity of age, as from the fact, communicated quite confidentially by the travelled Nat, that she has had a desperate flirtation with a handsome midshipman. The conclusion is natural that she is an inconstant, cruel-hearted creature, with little appreciation of real worth; and furthermore, that all midshipmen are a very contemptible—not to say dangerous—set of men. She is consigned to forgetfulness and neglect; and the ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell

... industrial avocation to which women have not heretofore applied themselves. But there is no such toleration for the rich. Many of these are now striving to kill time with fancy-work and fiction, with flirtation and flaunting. Some are destitute of aspiration for anything better. These could be moved only by some convulsion in the social system, like the earthquake, or like the volcano that opens the ground at our feet and shows us our danger. But there are others whose ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage

... respectability; yet that is the doom of all domesticity. Then pleasure! A wretched play—a hot opera, under the ghostly fathership of Mr. Monck Mason—a dinner of sixteen, with such silence or such conversation!—a water-party to Richmond, to catch cold and drink bad sauterne—a flirtation, which fills all your friends with alarm, and your writing-desk with love-letters you don't like to burn, and are afraid of being seen; nay, published, perhaps, one fine day, that you may go by some ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 578 - Vol. XX, No. 578. Saturday, December 1, 1832 • Various

... and drygoods store there ... and that my father met my mother one day in Mornington. She was visiting an uncle who ran a candy store on Main Street, and, she girl-like, laughed and stood behind the counter, ready for a flirtation.... ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp

... it. Besides that, deeply within herself, lay the conviction that James was kind if you took him the right way. He was irritable, and very annoying when he was sarcastic; but he was good at heart. And it was odd, she thought, that directly she got into an awkward place with a flirtation, her first impulse was to go to James to get her out. In her dream she had called to him, though Urquhart had been ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... rivers o' blood, an' the like. Well, all that finally made Carrie mad, an' she told 'im he was jest a boy, an' that she had never meant to marry 'im, nohow. An' while he stood gaspin' fer breath she lit in to beggin' him not to tell nobody about the'r little flirtation. She said folks would think it was silly of her, an' if Jim Cahews meant business, which it looked like he did, a tale like that might ...
— Dixie Hart • Will N. Harben

... up to a castle, blow a trumpet, and announce that unless a certain lady were released forthwith death and destruction would begin,—all that was simple enough, easy and according to rule; but to go into a lady's drawing-room without an introduction, and request her to stop a certain flirtation,—that was a much more awful undertaking. But Ingram could not altogether dismiss this notion from his head. Mosenberg went on playing—no longer his practicing-pieces, but all manner of airs which ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 31. October, 1873. • Various

... see him for a day only; for he was obliged to resume his journey immediately. * * * Do you recollect, in the year of revelry 1814, the pleasantest parties and balls all over London? and not the least so at * *'s. Do you recollect your singing duets with Lady * *, and my flirtation with Lady * *, and all the other fooleries of the time? while * * was sighing, and Lady * * ogling him with her clear hazel eyes. But eight years have passed, and, since that time, * * has * * * * * *;—has run away with ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... he had followed Beatrice, he made eyes openly at another lady, to distract the attention of the observing public. The plan worked so well that Beatrice, seeing the flirtation, shortly afterward met Dante and cut him dead, or, to use his own ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 13 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Lovers • Elbert Hubbard

... among more mature couples. Should it happen that a man no longer cares for his wife or a woman for her husband (which seldom befalls) or should they have met with somebody else that they like better, no demoralizing love-intrigue, or guilty flirtation is the consequence; they simply announce their change of feeling to their conjugal half and if the latter still cherishes a sincere attachment for the faithless partner in wedlock he or she will hasten to make the other happy by giving up all ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti

... of the second floor, who was drunk whenever his wife was sober, gave me an insight into the psychology of the beer mug that would have added to the mental furniture of my most scholarly teacher. The bold-faced girls who passed the evening on the corner, in promiscuous flirtation with the cock-eyed youths of the neighborhood, unconsciously revealed to me the eternal secrets of adolescence. My neighbor of the third floor, who sat on the curbstone with the scabby baby in her bedraggled lap, had things to say about ...
— The Promised Land • Mary Antin

... psychoanalysis recalled to M.O. that during the period of early flirtation he had often kissed and embraced various girls, but likewise he recalled having observed at the same time, with some surprise, that no definitely sexual desire arose, though the way was probably open to gratify it. Such interest as did exist ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... and, to his great delight, heard a handsome woman ask for the Plain Dealer, which had just been published. He made acquaintance with the lady, who proved to be the Countess of Drogheda, a gay young widow, with an ample jointure. She was charmed with his person and his wit, and, after a short flirtation, agreed to become his wife. Wycherley seems to have been apprehensive that this connection might not suit well with the King's plans respecting the Duke of Richmond. He accordingly prevailed on the lady to consent to a private marriage. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... was driven to run about the splendid convent gardens; she hurried from tree to tree, she rushed into the darkest nooks—seeking? What? She did not know, but she fell a prey to the demon; she carried on a flirtation with the trees, she appealed to them in unspoken words. Sometimes, in the evening, she stole along under the walls, like a snake, without any shawl over her bare shoulders. Often in chapel, during the service, she remained with her eyes fixed on the Crucifix, melted to tears; ...
— Scenes from a Courtesan's Life • Honore de Balzac

... He had been there for a month with a broken leg. Perhaps it was the dangerous knowledge of the power of her beauty—the woman's instinct in her to tease with her prettiness, that led to Marie's flirtation with O'Grady. But Jan could not understand, and she played with fire—the fire of two hearts instead of one. The world went to pieces under Jan after that. There came the day when, in fair fight, he choked the taunting sneer from O'Grady's face back in the woods. He fought like ...
— Back to God's Country and Other Stories • James Oliver Curwood

... Persia. European women are scarce and mostly married or about to get married. The native women are kept in strict seclusion. One never sees a native woman except heavily veiled under her chudder, much less can a European talk to her. The laws of Persia are so severe that anything in the shape of a flirtation with a Persian lady may cost the life of Juliet or Romeo, or both, and if life is spared, blackmail is ever after levied by the police or by the girl's parents or ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... is placed the tea equipage, and tea in beautiful little cups is being dispensed by fair hands. This is a very pleasant time in many houses, and particularly favorable to fun and flirtation. In houses where there are children, the cousins of the house and others very intimate adjourn to the school-room, where, when the party is further reinforced by three or four boys home for the holidays, a scene of fun and frolic, which it requires all ...
— Lippincott's Magazine Of Popular Literature And Science, No. 23, February, 1873, Vol. XI. • Various

... try and make friends with the twins. Desmond would be easy, but he's going. Pamela will be more difficult. However, I shall do my best. As I have already said, if she would only set up a flirtation—a nice one—that I could ...
— Elizabeth's Campaign • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... audience clapped. Sometimes they were too familiar with their kind of flirtation with death to clap. Then Florette and her partner would invent something a little more daring. They would learn to balance themselves on chairs tilted on two legs on the trapeze, or Florette would hang by only one hand, or she would support her partner ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various

... the tree-tops and the shadows were long. There was a flirtation going on between the leaves and the breeze. The birds were flitting from branch to branch. A chill was on the air: it was bathing the cheek with its delicious touch, and animated life was rejoicing that evening ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks

... join the party, and Mr. Gleason gritted his teeth and went for more chairs. Mrs. Turner had appeared on her own gallery just before, possibly with the intention of starting a rival levee, and one or two youthful moths were fluttering about her candle already. She was not averse to a flirtation, ordinarily, but it did not look well to see her sitting with only one or two of the infantry subalterns when Mrs. Stannard's piazza was filled. She wisely determined to join the majority; smilingly transferred herself and escort thither, and was as smilingly welcomed. There must have ...
— Marion's Faith. • Charles King

... well enough what you have been about; it is an old device of young gentlemen who wish to revenge themselves just a little for what they think a slight. Of course you have never given a thought to Miss Doran, who, as you say, would never dream of carrying on a flirtation, for she knows how things are between you and Madeline, and she is a young lady of very proper behaviour. In no case, as you of course understand, could she be so indelicate as anything of this kind would imply. No; but you ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing

... one the length of C Street. And though the sidewalk was crowded, for stocks were up, and one had to wriggle one's way through the people packed tight in front of the brokers' offices, yet, in the very teeth of the townsfolk, to joy shamelessly in flirtation with this gorgeous, shining, flattering stranger—a social outlaw, as well as a bird of passage, the very disrepute of whose profession made temptation more ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson

... young man brought up to the American tradition that the face is the woman. But that morning Sinclair exerted his charms in vain. Ruth was in a hurry, was distinctly rude, cut short what in other circumstances would have been a prolonged and delightful flirtation by tossing the sample on the counter and asking him to do the matching for her and to send the silk right away. Which said, she fairly bolted ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips

... advertise yourself with an opera singer—you, an ambitious politician, who moves with his head in the clouds, and to whom women are no more than a pastime. Why have you waited all these years to commence a flirtation under my very nose!" ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... (meat) viando. Flesh karno. Flexibility fleksebleco. Flexible fleksebla. Flexion flekso. Flicker lumsxanceli. Flight forkuro. Flight (birds) flugado. Fling jxeti. Flint (mineral) siliko. Flippant babila. Flirt amindumeti, koketi. Flirt koketulino. Flirtation koketeco. Flit flirti. Float (intrans.) nagxi. Float (trans.) flosi. Flock (congregation) zorgitaro. Flock aro. Flog skurgxi. Flood superakvego. Floor planko. Floor (storey) etagxo. Florid ...
— English-Esperanto Dictionary • John Charles O'Connor and Charles Frederic Hayes

... woman he wished to draw into a flirtation pour passer le temps; she was the woman he wished to marry—was determined to marry, if possible. The instinct, common to every manly man, to hold in peculiar respect the woman whom he wishes to make his wife, ...
— Princess • Mary Greenway McClelland

... awake,—but the responses of mediums are either evasive or too highly generalized to be of any particular value. The story of Mary Runnel, or Rondel, which Julian Hawthorne narrates, is an excellent case in point. Hawthorne had probably heard of that flirtation of his grandfather some time in his youth, and the fact was unconsciously latent in his mind; but nothing that Mary divulged at Bellosguardo was of real interest to him or to the others concerned. The practice of spiritism, hypnotism, or Christian ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns

... race. The young gentlemen, in the intervals of business—and it seemed to be all interval and no business—devoted themselves to games at buttons. Each of the young ladies—I am afraid to say how young—had her cavalier, and applied herself to very pronounced flirtation. The language of one and all certainly fulfilled the baptismal promise of their sponsors, if the poor little waifs ever had any—for it was very "vulgar tongue" indeed; and there was lots of it. The great sensation of the morning was a broken window ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies

... a constant fire of free-and-easy flirtation going on between them. At one table a man in a cloth cap was saying to the ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine

... beat. This night, or rather this morning, of the day following upon the meeting in Union Street, discovered Alban driven to the more hazardous way. His quick eye had detected, on the far side of the enclosure, an amiable flirtation between a man of law and a lady of the dusters; and avoiding both discreetly, he slipped into a trench of the newly made foundations and crawled as swiftly through an aperture ...
— Aladdin of London - or Lodestar • Sir Max Pemberton

... together round the grounds. They did not wander far before they came across the bishop's son, who was paying elaborate attention to the daughter of a squatter who could count his sheep by millions. With ill-concealed satisfaction, her fond mother watched her daughter's flirtation with one of England's nobility, as she supposed him to be. Further on, they met their man, evidently in the full swing of enjoyment. He was talking to a young English lady with whom he was seated under a spreading eucalyptus, and satirising colonial manners. ...
— Australia Revenged • Boomerang

... this inimical flirtation was interrupted by the rapid approach of a courier. This was the signal announcing the impending arrival of Josephine Bonaparte. In fact, the heads of four horses were seen already in the distance; they came nearer and nearer, and now the carriage drawn by these horses, and ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach

... that he could at once set up a satisfactory establishment as a married man was a sufficient guarantee against danger. This play at being a little in love was agreeable, and did not interfere with graver pursuits. Flirtation, after all, was not necessarily a singeing process. Rosamond, for her part, had never enjoyed the days so much in her life before: she was sure of being admired by some one worth captivating, and she did not distinguish flirtation from love, either in herself or in another. She seemed to be sailing ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot

... "Well, well; a flirtation never turned so quickly into a love match," said the old uncle, who kept an eye on the two young people as a naturalist watches an insect in ...
— The Ball at Sceaux • Honore de Balzac

... is a peculiar atrocity in the circumstances which gave rise to the following poem, that stirs even the Dead Sea of our sensibilities. The lady appears to have carried on a furious flirtation with the bard—a cousin of her own—which she, naturally perhaps, but certainly cruelly, terminated by marrying an old East Indian nabob, with a complexion like curry powder, innumerable lacs of rupees, and a woful lack of liver. A ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun

... immense amount of experience was crowded into that brief period. The fine exhilaration of the start,—the breeze gradually increasing to a gale; then horrible sea-sickness, home-sickness, love-sickness; after which, the weather which sailors love, games, gayety, and flirtation. There is no such social freedom to be enjoyed anywhere as on board an ocean steamer. The breaking-up of old associations, the opening of a fresh existence, the necessity of new relationships,—this fuses the crust of conventionality, quickens the springs of life, and renders character sympathetic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 10, August, 1858 • Various

... "published" by the "editor of Pamela and Clarissa" — enjoying the sunshine of his authorship. His introduction to Pamela and the care he took with it suggest more succinctly than anything else Richardson's flirtation with his adorers, which is not at all unlike that ...
— Samuel Richardson's Introduction to Pamela • Samuel Richardson

... my husband; therefore, conscious of the purity of my intentions, it was my delight to brave the opinion of the wondering world. I gave myself no concern about the effect my coquetry might have upon the object of this flirtation. Poor Lawless! Heart, I took it for granted, he had none; how should a coxcomb come by a heart? Vanity I knew he had in abundance, but this gave me no alarm, as I thought that if it should ever make him forget him self, I mean ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. III - Belinda • Maria Edgeworth

... How indiscreet!" laughed Edna. "Can't he have a little undisturbed flirtation with his ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham

... veiled, being considered the greatest beauties I presume, since with the Turk obesity is the chief element of comeliness. As the carriages passed along in review, every now and then an occupant, unable or unwilling to repress her natural promptings, would indulge in a mild flirtation, making overtures by casting demure side-glances, throwing us coquettish kisses, or waving strings of amber beads with significant gestures, seeming to say: "Why don't you follow?" But this we could not do if we would, for the Esplanade ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... in its bulb if she would not hate him and do him ill when she sincerely wished him well. She reviewed the beaux of Bath House for one upon whom she might pretend to fix her affections, and at once, before Warner's inclination ripened into passion; but the very thought of entering into a serious flirtation with any of those tight-waisted, tight-trousered exquisites induced a sensation of ennui, and with Hunsdon she did not care to trifle. He might be wearisome, but he was good and sincere, and Lady Mary should have him were it in her power to bring ...
— The Gorgeous Isle - A Romance; Scene: Nevis, B.W.I. 1842 • Gertrude Atherton



Words linked to "Flirtation" :   caper, flirt, toying, play, romp, gambol, frolic



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