Like lightning the convulsive battle was joined there in the woodland depths and the girl, all fire and grace, swayed like a willow under the furious rhythmic rushes of the unseen fish.
Click-click went her reel, and the feathery whirr of the line accented the silence. Then that living opalescent thing sprang quivering out of its element, and fell back, conquered, in a shower of opal rain.
Toward noon we came to a pool into which poured the stream with a golden sound between two boulders mantled thick with moss. And here Thusis seated herself and laid aside her rod.
"I am hungry," she said, looking over her shoulder at me with the same aloof composure that all the morning had reversed our rôles as master and maid.
But even as she spoke she seemed to realize the actual situation: a delicate color came into her cheeks and then she laughed.
"Isn't it funny?" she said, springing to her feet. "Such presumption! Pray condescend to unsling the basket and I shall give Don Michael his lunch."
"Don Michael," said I, "will continue to do the dirty work on this expedition. Sit down, Thusis."
"Oh, I couldn't permit——"
"Oh, yes, you could. You've been behaving like a sporting duchess all this morning. Continue in that congenial rôle."
"What did you say?" she demanded, her gray eyes frosty and intent on me.