Page:Elizabeth's Pretenders.djvu/88

Rh dress, leaning, half asleep, with her back against the green bank, the open volume of "Mensonges" on her lap! If anything could have kept her wide awake, no doubt that would; but the long silken lashes closed over the china-blue eyes from time to time, the lids fluttered, the eyes opened only to close again, the book dropped from her hand—she was asleep. Elizabeth arose, and went down to the water's edge, close to Rupert.

"How patient you are!" she said. Then added, with a smile, "I should not have expected it of you."

"They are beginning to bite. I have had two nibbles."

"And you have been here more than two hours! That would never satisfy me."

"I am afraid you are hard to satisfy. As long as the fish rise, a fisherman never despairs. He may have the wrong fly, but he knows there's something ready to be caught."

"I think I am more like the fish than the fisherman. It is all a question of the fly with me. You used the right one, I suppose—only"

"Hush! I've got a bite," he whispered. "Speak low, or you'll frighten him away. By Jove! I've hooked him; and he must weigh five pound if he weighs an ounce. He is going to give me some play. Look out! He's tugging at me like grim death. Stand a little back."

And Rupert was so absorbed in the difficult operation of landing his fish, that he thought no more of Elizabeth for the moment. She walked away, up the bank and out of sight, into the wood. She should have watched to see how the fish dragged its skilful captor many yards down the stream, until, exhausted with its struggle, it