"Contretemps" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a story quite as it ought to be told to produce an effect. She is too reserved, too concise, too rigidly conscientious. She does not like to be the centre of interest, even in a modest contretemps like being locked out of a room which contains part of her dress; but from her brief explanation to Lady Killbally, her more complete and confidential account on the way home, and Benella's graphic story when we arrived there, we were able to ...
— Penelope's Irish Experiences • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... to see after the luncheon; this had been done by a freedman, and she was annoyed. "There," said Quintus, "that is what I have to put up with every day!" When he sent her dishes from the triclinium, where the gentlemen were having their meal, she would not taste them. This little domestic contretemps is too good to be neglected, but we must turn to women ...
— Social life at Rome in the Age of Cicero • W. Warde Fowler
... long course of the meal, Vanderlyn listened silently to Pargeter's conjectures concerning Peggy's disappearance—conjectures broken by lamentations over the contretemps which had made it impossible for him to leave Paris that day. Absorbed as he was in himself and his own grievances, Pargeter was yet keenly aware when his companion's attention seemed in any way to wander, and at last there came a moment when, leaving his cup of black coffee half full, he pushed ...
— The Uttermost Farthing • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... members recently elected, immediately proceeded to the old city wall to meet them. They were accompanied by the municipal band in full uniform, playing "Die Wacht am Rhein," which they had been assiduously practising. Unfortunately this led to what might have been a somewhat painful contretemps. On meeting the municipal band the Prussian commander, Colonel von Brausebrum, halted his soldiers and in a loud voice declared that our men were playing out of tune. Perhaps this was true, but the offence ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 146., January 14, 1914 • Various
... more about it than one does when having a tooth out under gas? What a good thing! Dear me! What a good thing! And I'm sure Mr. Coventry will try to forget all about it. Any gentleman would. Really, such a—a contretemps makes one feel one ought almost to be fully clothed ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler
... be remembered, that but for the incident which resulted in the deaths of the officers, and which Sir Bindon Blood described in his official despatch as an "unfortunate contretemps," the total casualties would have only been seven wounded. That so strong a position should have been captured with so little loss, is due, firstly, to the dispositions of the general; and secondly, to ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... Froggatt in her magnificent head-gear, making her laugh herself almost to tears again as she declined. He held the Miss Pearsons in greater awe, and ventured on neither; so that Robina had him for Sir Roger de Coverley, where the sole contretemps arose from Angel and Bear being in such boisterous spirits that Wilmet decreed that they must not be partners again. Of the rest, some had a good deal of dancing-master experience; Mrs. Harewood's impromptu merry-makings had afforded plenty of practice ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the other grunted, "nothing much by the look of it." They glared at one another like fighting cats ... the contretemps fizzled out; both were ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... fact, it was not a letter from Barry to Viola. It was the other way round. She had written him a long letter absolving herself from blame in the contretemps of the night before, at the same time confessing that she was absolutely in the dark as to how her mother had found out about their plans. Suffice to say, she HAD found out early in the evening and, to employ her own words, "You know the result." Then she went on to ...
— Viola Gwyn • George Barr McCutcheon
... greater portion of the day we ourselves had performed the role of spectators. With the exception of the contretemps already mentioned not a single shot came near us; we occupied an oasis of calm in the midst of a hell of fire—and looked on. At certain intervals we walked or trotted, and once we galloped madly for half a mile, expecting at ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... well-feigned annoyance. "Quel contretemps! I have left a most important document in his room, and, of course, ...
— The Trampling of the Lilies • Rafael Sabatini
... entertained by the following droll contretemps which befel our deservedly popular fellow-citizen, as we may call him, Mr. Pickwick. As our readers know, the Annual Charity Dinner took place at the Greyhound, on Tuesday, Mr. Pickwick being in the chair, and making many of his happiest speeches ...
— Pickwickian Studies • Percy Fitzgerald
... across a handsomely-bound edition of the Pharmacopoeia, and a copy of Erskine's Toxicology, edited by Sir Mathew Reid, the President of the Royal College of Physicians, and one of the oldest members of the Buckingham, having been elected in mistake for somebody else; a contretemps that so enraged the Committee, that when the real man came up they black-balled him unanimously. Lord Arthur was a good deal puzzled at the technical terms used in both books, and had begun to regret that he had not paid more attention to his classics at Oxford, when in the second ...
— Lord Arthur Savile's Crime and Other Stories • Oscar Wilde
... was about as hideous and devil-born a contretemps as, say, putting a belted earl to peel potatoes or asking an archbishop to clean cuspidors. The man boiled with offended dignity and outraged pride. One could actually see him swell. He had expected something quite different, and this apparently offensive triviality ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... political economy and knew something of English life, having preached to thousands of Catholic miners in Wales and confessed hundreds of Catholic ladies in Mayfair—an occupation in which he might still be engaged, but for a little CONTRETEMPS which brought him into collision with the Jesuits of Mount Street—Don Francesco, who could voice the Southerner's one-sided point of view, often adverted to this match-tax when proving the superiority of his country's administrative methods over those of England. This is what he would ...
— South Wind • Norman Douglas
... hang-dog air, feeling that now indeed had his case been made hopeless by this contretemps. "Confound Labertouche!" he cried in his ungrateful heart. "Confound his meddling mystery-mongering ...
— The Bronze Bell • Louis Joseph Vance
... contretemps with Lucille happened to be Friday, and she was painfully engaged in her weekly molding of public opinion. It had been a barren week, and there was nothing ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... occurred, the second day of the eclipse, among the representatives of Bivouac, and the candidate of the Horizontals would certainly have been chosen to fill it, but for a contretemps connected with this affair of motives. The individual in question had lately performed that which, in most other countries, and under other circumstances, would have passed for an act of creditable national feeling; but which, quite as a matter of course, ...
— The Monikins • J. Fenimore Cooper
... understand that the Military and Civil Governors in the provinces, being anxious to retain their posts and conciliate the great personage who would be king, gave the problem their most earnest attention, and left no stone unturned to secure that there should be no awkward contretemps. On the 28th September, the Peking Government, being now entirely surrendered into the hands of the plotters, thought it advisable to give the common people a direct hint of what was coming, by sending circular instructions regarding the non-observance ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... in the face of such CONTRETEMPS as these that the low-bred man betrays himself. Yet such was my chagrin on this occasion, and so sudden the shock, that it was all I could do to maintain my SANGFROID, and, dismissing Maignan with a look, be content to punish M. de Perrot with a sneer. "I ...
— From the Memoirs of a Minister of France • Stanley Weyman |
