"Coyly" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... with that film—it wasn't that it got in so many legs, but that it giggled coyly and promised to show more of them, and then didn't keep the promise. It was ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... Pilgrim," he demurred coyly. He paused. Her mention of shipping offices disturbed him. He had much business with shipping offices; and he was picturing to himself, involuntarily and with distaste, that gentle courage bruising itself upon the ...
— Those Who Smiled - And Eleven Other Stories • Perceval Gibbon
... to Littleton with her smile and in tears—the image of bewitching but pathetic self-justification and surrender. Her mind was made up; hence why procrastinate and coyly postpone the desirable, and the inevitable? That was what she had the shrewdness to formulate in the ecstasy of her transport; and so eloquent was the mute revelation of her love that Littleton, diffident reverencer of the modesty of woman as he was, without a word ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... with surface-drainage, and the sun-for-garbage cure, Till you've been a periwinkle shrinking coyly up a sewer. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... expected happened. A hubbub arose in Scotland and elsewhere, and in consequence of the hubbub an Act of Parliament has somewhat coyly made its appearance in the Statute Book (5 Edward VII., chapter 12) appointing and authorizing Commissioners to take away from the successful litigant a certain portion of the property just declared to be his, and to give it to the ...
— In the Name of the Bodleian and Other Essays • Augustine Birrell
... as was easily seen by the broken bottles littered all over it. However, the Mayor was a bon-vivant, and I do not wish to have a better set of bins to pick from. Chambertin, Graves, Alicant, white wine and red, sparkling and still, they lay in pyramids peeping coyly out of sawdust. Old Bouvet stood with his candle looking here and peeping there, purring in his throat like a cat before a milk-pail. He had picked upon a Burgundy at last, and had his hand outstretched ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... cheek glowing red. She half started, and blushed in turn; and with one glance drank in every article of dress he had on. Her eyes beamed pleasure and admiration for a moment, then she made a little courtesy, then she took a step toward him, and held out her hand a little coyly. ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... reached us, toying coyly with the boat's canvas at first, but gradually bellying out the sails until at last they "went to sleep." The breeze was, after all, merely the gentlest of zephyrs, only just sufficient to give a ship steerage-way; but, very fortunately for us, the boats were provided, by a whim of poor Austin's, ...
— The Congo Rovers - A Story of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood
... armed guard under the absolute control of black Mustapha, armed to the teeth, chaperoned by Mrs. Grundy in the shape or, as I should say, represented in the shapeless person of a dusky duenna of many moons, a good heart and a vitriolic tongue, who coyly peeped from behind the sombre curtains of her middle-aged palanquin, Jill started on her wedding journey. Over a carpet of flowers, through a long lane of palm leaves, held by veiled maidens, so ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... was all so strange to her. But Mali went to the door and beckoned carelessly to one of the native girls just outside, who drew near the line at the summons, with a somewhat frightened air, putting one finger to her mouth in coyly uncertain savage fashion. ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... bitter imprecation, turned and fled. But he heard light footfalls behind him; he was conscious of a faint perfume, born of no earthly flower, felt a soft panting breath. A light hand touched his face. He flung his vows to anxious Satan, and turned to clasp the woman in his arms. But she coyly retreated, half-resentfully, half-invitingly, wholly lovely. Satan closed his iron hand about the vows, and the priest ran toward the woman, the lines of repression on his face gone, the eyes conquering the mouth. But again she retreated. He quickened his steps; she accelerated ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... an epileptic patient; but presently recovers, and busies himself about the bower. When he has induced the female to enter it, he seems greatly pleased; alters the disposition of a feather or a shell, as if hoping that the change may meet her approbation; and looks at her as she sits coyly under the overarching twigs, and then at the little arrangement which he has made, and then at her again, till one could almost fancy that one hears him breathe a sigh. He is still in his transition dress, and has not yet donned his full ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... Irene herself would have been surprised if she were told that it was once the custom for engaged young ladies to reveal their happiness by displaying a ring on the middle finger, while those who were free but prepared to wed might coyly announce the fact by a ring on the index finger. Be that as it may, Royson was dumfounded by the sight of the glistening diamonds. They winked at him evilly, and his ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... the child. Now honest Paul was a bachelor, and had literally never handled a baby in his life. He, therefore, felt an uncommon awe and trepidation, as half unwillingly and half proudly he undertook the office. However, at last, when coyly led forward, with his head all on one side and a beaming smile on his honest countenance, he found that his big paws, stretched out, made a first-rate cradle; though, not being aware of the excessive ...
— True Blue • W.H.G. Kingston |
