Bridie, meantime, was doing pretty well in that field. “Why’n’t you girls meet us at the airport, I looked for you, and downstairs in the store.”

The Raffsky girls, in features, manner and deportment, were like two nice plump upper Bronx girls you might see having an ice-cream soda at Schrafft’s at five, now transplanted, incongruously, to the frigid wilderness of the Bering Sea.

“Mama doesn’t like us to go down in the store much, except to help out, of course, when they’re busy.” Elinor’s tone made plain that this arrangement was family battleground. “Or the airport, either.”

Nancy Raffsky took up the theme in a tone equally aggrieved. “She says—and Papa too—that when the Dew Line gang gets here—–”

Norman shut off the phonograph, shut his book, rose and left the room. Chris stared. No one else seemed to find this behavior strange.

“Something smells elegant!” Bridie called out. She had sauntered into the dining room and had then vanished into the kitchen.

“Come on,” the two Raffskys said, happily, and linked arms with Chris. Friendly, outgoing as they were, Chris decided for a question or two even on such short acquaintance. Anyway, she could stand it no longer.

“Were you born here, I mean, have you always lived here?… Can anyone use these rooms, I mean do the roomers or guests use this as a public room, I shouldn’t think.… Are there parties or … Where do you go to school …?” She longed to ask about Leah Raffsky, but refrained here, at least. “Are there other girls—and boys of course”—she almost had said like you, but substituted—“your age, I mean …?”

The Misses Raffsky, their father’s daughters, had no secrets from the world, they were as voluble as their mother and brother were uncommunicative.

“We’re going to school in Baranof next year, Mama wants us to, Papa doesn’t but we are.… He wants Norman to go to M.I.T. that’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology but Norman says he knows as much as they do now.… I love your dress did you get it in Baranof or send to Seattle … we’ve invited some people for dinner tonight to meet you, we love company.”

“Tonight!” Chris said, doubtfully.

“Ross can’t make it back by dinnertime,” Nancy said immediately, with the aplomb of a mind reader.

“How did you know he had planned to get back?” Startled.

“Oh, everybody in Oogruk knows everything about everybody, it’s the mukluk grapevine. There’s two girls here from Philadelphia, they’re coming for dinner, and their husbands are schoolteachers here, they’re both Princeton men, the girls don’t like it very well here, I think, but here their husbands earn about five times as much as they could in the States, they say they’re going to try to stick it out for three years.… Lowell Aragrook is coming to dinner, too, he and his wife, he’s in charge of all the Alaska reindeer herds up here, but he’s been fishing for beluga. I heard he got the first catch of the season maybe he’ll try to beach them tonight, I hope not because you might want to see it and there’s going to be some Eskimo dancing especially for you, maybe Lowell won’t beach them until tomorrow morning.…”