"I don't want to hit you," replied Fawkes, still advancing; "but you're goin' to pay for that kick."
"I'll pay with another," snapped Flamby, her fiery nature reasserting itself momentarily.
But despite the bravado, she was half fearful, and therefore some of her inherent woodcraft deserted her, so much so that not noting a tuft of ferns which uprose almost at her heels, she stepped quickly back, stumbled, and Fawkes had his arms about her, holding her close.
"Now what can you do?" he sneered, his crafty face very close to hers.
"This," breathed Flamby, her colour departing again.
She seized his ear in her teeth and bit him savagely. Fawkes uttered a hoarse scream of pain, and a second time released her, clapping his hand to the wounded member.
"You damned witch cat," he said. "I could kill you."
Flamby leapt from him, panting. "You couldn't!" she taunted. "All you can kill is rabbits!"
Through an opening in the dense greenwood a ray of sunlight spilled its gold upon the carpet of Bluebell Hollow, and Flamby stood, defiant, head thrown back, where the edge of the ray touched her wonderful, disordered hair and magically turned it to sombre fire. Venomous yet, but doubtful, Fawkes confronted her, now holding his handkerchief to his ear. And so the pair were posed when Paul Mario and Donald Courtier came down the steep path skirting the dell. Don grasped Paul by the arm.
"As I live," he said, "there surely is my kindly coy nymph of the woods—now divinely visible—who led me to your doors!"