“I am pleased to meet you, Miss Stevens,” said Larry, taking her hand.
And he meant it—for almost anyone would have been pleased to meet Diane, with her tawny gold hair, warm olive cheeks and eyes bluer even than her father’s and just as twinkling, just as intelligent.
“She will accompany the expedition and take stenographic notes of everything we observe,” added her father, to Larry’s amazement.
“What?” he declared. “You mean to say that—that—”
“Of course he means to say that I’m going, if that’s what you mean to say, Mr. Hunter,” Diane assured him. “Can you think of any good reason why I shouldn’t go, when girls are flying around the world and everything else?”
Even had Larry been able to think of any good reason, he wouldn’t have mentioned it. But as a matter of fact, he had shifted quite abruptly to an entirely different line of thought. Diane, he was thinking—Diana, goddess of the chase, the huntress! And himself, Larry Hunter—the hunter and the huntress!
Gee, but he’d like to go! What an adventure, hunting around together on the bottom of the ocean!
What a wild dream, rather, he concluded when his senses returned. For after all, he was only a reporter, fated to write about other people’s adventures, not to participate in them. So he put away his pad and pencil and prepared to leave.
But at the door he paused.