He stood looking down at her for a moment, wondering what could have reduced her to this condition.

) hung on a hook on the wall, and underneath it I could see his tie, knotted, ready to be slipped over his head, a black badge of frayed respectability that ought never to have left his neck.

I was at once disappointed, although just what I had expected him to look like I could not have explained.

As he lowered himself on the chair behind his desk I wondered what this dapper, slightly ridiculous man could possibly have to do with the workings of the hall.

No man could have reached his spot nor held it without being ruthless, and Hague had made a virtue of ruthlessness all of his life.

At once my ears were drowned by a flow of what I took to be Spanish, but -- the driver's white teeth flashing at me, the road wildly veering beyond his glistening hair, beyond his gesticulating bottle -- it could have been the purest Oxford English I was half hearing ; ;

with more time I could have loosened a small burr or cotter pin --

She realized I'd have to notify the police, but fervently hoped I could avoid mentioning her name.

They were married over the week-end, though he was easily sixty and she could not have been even thirty.

Her form was silhouetted and with the strong light I could see the outlines of her body, a body that an artist or anyone else would have admired.

If it were not that I knew who it was I could have mistaken it for my Aunt so well did her clothes fit him.

This was the worst thing I could have said.

and I have heard many say that they are content to earn a half or a third as much as they could up North because they so much prefer the quieter habits of their home town.

What steps have been taken to guard against the one sort of mishap that could trigger the destruction of continents??

This and other fears of the solar system have disappeared gradually, first, with the Ptolemaic system and its built-in concept of periodicity and then, more firmly, with the Newtonian innovation of an universal force that could account quantitatively for both terrestial and celestial motions.

The conversation that ensued may have been engrossing but it could hardly be called world-shattering.

The part of the mind that preserves dates and events may remonstrate, `` It could have been like that for only a little while '' ; ;

I have no picture in my mind of the garden as a whole -- that I could not see -- but certain aspects of certain corners linger in the memory: wind-blown, frost-bitten, white chrysanthemums beneath a window, with their brittle brown leaves and their sharp scent of November ; ;

Such problems are of extreme interest as well as importance and are so much like fighting in a rain forest or guerrilla warfare at night in tall grass that we might have to re-examine primitive conflicts for what they could teach.

Any attempt to reconcile this statement of the central issue in the campaign of 1956 with the nature of the man who could not conceive it as the central issue will at least resolve our confusions about the chaotic and misleading results of the earnestness of both doctors and President in a situation which should never have arisen.

Actually, you could wish for some passion, now and then, but when you look around the world and see the little volcanos of current history which partisan social passions have wrought, you are glad that in these pamphlets there is at least some civilized calm.

Given the conceptual context within which ancient thought thrived, how could anyone have questioned this principle??

He might have been the man in the moon for all you could have understood him.

If you had screamed right there in the street where we stood, I could not have felt more fear.

Zhou later argued that as the boundary was undemarcated and had never been defined by treaty between any Chinese or Indian government, the Indian government could not unilaterally define Aksai Chin's borders.

The 1997 – 2000 term was marked by the Bloc's fight against the passage of the Clarity Act, the attempt by Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien ( himself a Quebecer who represented a strongly nationalist riding ) and Stéphane Dion, a Quebec minister in Chrétien's cabinet, to codify the Supreme Court of Canada's 1998 decision that Quebec could not secede unilaterally.

Either of the two consuls holding office in a given year could block a military or civil decision by the other ; any tribune had the power to unilaterally block legislation passed by the Roman Senate.

Following an order from the federal government in 1964 that they would unilaterally choose a site if both cities could not come to an agreement on a site, officials from the two cities finally agreed on a location for a new regional airport that was north of the abandoned GSW and almost perfectly equidistant from the two city centers.

: the United States has, among other things, attempted or been perceived as attempting more or less unilaterally to do the following: pressure other countries to adopt American values and practices regarding human rights and democracy ; prevent other countries from acquiring military capabilities that could counter American conventional superiority ; enforce American law extra-territorially in other societies ; grade countries according to their adherence to American standards on human rights, drugs, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, missile proliferation, and now religious freedom ; apply sanctions against countries that do not meet American standards on these issues ; promote American corporate interests under the slogans of free trade and open markets and GATT being the main examples of the free trade policy initiatives of the 1990s ; shape World Bank and International Monetary Fund policies to serve those same corporate interests ; intervene in local conflicts in which it has relatively little direct interest ; ... ; promote American arms sales abroad while attempting to prevent comparable sales by other countries ; force out one U. N. secretary-general and dictate the appointment of his successor ; expand NATO initially to include Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic and no one else ; undertake military action against Iraq and later maintain harsh economic sanctions against the regime ; and categorize certain countries as ' rogue states ,' excluding them from global institutions ....< sup > 1 </ sup >

After unpromising negotiations with the provincial governments, Pierre Trudeau eventually began to hope that the federal Parliament could unilaterally patriate the constitution.

While these authorities were granted by statute during the US-led occupation and again from 1975, they could be unilaterally revoked by the Diet of Japan ; similar measures against other municipalities would require a constitutional amendment.

Landis argued that because a parent club could unilaterally call up players from teams which were involved in pennant races, the organization was unfairly interfering with the minor competitions.

He thought that the only way war could happen now was if Frederick the Great unilaterally attacked Austria which, given the clear disparity in numbers, he would be a " madman " to do.

Legal proceedings backed by the Players ' Union this time established that clubs could not unilaterally impose a cut in players ' contracted wages.

Both the Government of Quebec and the Government of Canada publicly stated that they were very pleased with the opinion of the Supreme Court, which stated both that Quebec could not legally separate unilaterally from Canada and that the Government of Canada would have a ' political obligation ' to enter into separation negotiations with Quebec in the event that a clear majority of its populace were to vote in favour of independence.

Just as Carlos could not unilaterally change the Constitutional Charter and grant Maria Pia succession rights, neither could Maria Pia ( even if she were rightful queen of Portugal ) unilaterally change the Constitution and grant succession rights to Rosario Poidimani above her daughter and grandsons.

Such a right could only be exercised unilaterally under certain circumstances, under current international law.

The Supreme Court had made it clear that Quebec could not declare independence unilaterally.

The UK became part of that legal order, though as UK membership of the EU has been brought about through Acts of Parliament – principally the European Communities Act 1972 – Parliament could, as a matter of UK law, pass further legislation unilaterally withdrawing the UK from the Union, or selectively barring the application of European law within the UK.

Actually, what he said was that " the United States could well declare unilaterally ... that we have ' won ' in the sense that our armed forces are in control of most of the field and no potential enemy is in a position to establish its authority over South Vietnam ," and that such a declaration " would herald the resumption of political warfare as the dominant theme in Vietnam.

The Court ruled that Quebec, with less than 23 percent of Canada's population, could not unilaterally secede and only accede to sovereignty if the referendum has a clear majority in favour of a clearly worded question.

The Supreme Court upheld the lower courts ' rulings stating that " Wyeth could have unilaterally added a stronger warning about IV-push administration " without acting in opposition to federal law.

The constitutional division of competencies between provincial governments and the central government, guaranteeing the autonomy of the former, which could not be unilaterally revoked by the central government ; the capacity of the provincial governments to make decisions autonomously about matters relative to taxation, the police force, public works, jobs, etc.

However, when the British saw that their objectives could not be met, they unilaterally rejected all proposals submitted by the Muslims.

However, 2011, the Supreme Court decided Stanford v. Roche on whether a university's right under the Act " can be terminated unilaterally by an individual inventor through a separate agreement "., and held that this could be true in some instances.