Page:A Wild-Goose Chase - Balmer - 1915.djvu/42

28 to herself, and he'd be a Viking. But for five generations his family had been American.

He told this in reply to a question from Margaret's mother as he also explained that, for most of the last five years, he had been "looking up" little known tribes in the interior of Brazil, in Papua and in Thibet and Nepal as field ethnologist for American societies. His hope in going to the Arctic was chiefly to come upon some settlements of Eskimos still in their primitive state before contact with civilised people.

Working as a field ethnologist—that explanation seemed to mean more to Margaret's parents than to her—evidently was not remunerative. For Margaret now saw that his grey suit, which seemed to look so well when she first saw him, actually was nearly threadbare and bore the marks of many careful mendings. She glanced across the table after she had discovered this and saw that her mother had noted it too. And Margaret realised better now the trend of the inquiries from her people. She had displayed impulsive liking of this stranger upon meeting him and, during dinner, she had