“Miss Baldwin,” I stammered. “Do you mean to say that you’re pleased to hear this? That you’d wish to stay on board if I assured you that we are practically in the hands of a crew of dangerous men, with no knowing what sort of adventure they may be going on?”
“Would I?” she cried promptly. “Why, it’s what I’ve been longing for all my life.”
“You—you have—what?” I stammered.
She smiled mischievously at my astonishment.
“Mr. Pitt, who was it that said, ‘most men lead lives of quiet desperation’? No matter. He should have included girls, too. Did you ever think that we, too, sometimes might get tired of the hum drum lives we’re born to and long for something wild to flavor our existence?”
“Good Lord, no!”
“Of course, you haven’t. Well, possibly I’m different from other girls. I don’t know. But I’ve always felt that if I had to live all my life without one great adventure I—I’d burst.”
“The great adventure for a girl,” said I severely, “is to love, marry, and——”
“Ah, yes! But somehow I seem to recall having heard that before.”
A sea-gull, following the Wanderer in search of galley droppings, swooped past us, struck the crest of a small wave with a splash, and soared upward and away.