"No, only India."

"I've never been there--and I've heard it's the kernel of the East," he
said with his lips. But his mind was puzzling something out and finding
a solution. The accent of that deep, resonant voice was neither Eastern
nor Western, Yankee nor Southern--nor yet quite British. It was rather
cosmopolitan--he had dimly placed her as a Californienne. Perhaps this
fragment explained it. She must be a daughter of the English official
class, reared in America. The theory would explain her complexion and
her simple, natural balance between frankness and reserve. He formed
that conclusion, but, "How do you like America after India?" was all he
said.

"How do you like it after the Philippines?" she responded.

"That is a Yankee trick--answering one question with another," he said,
still following his line of conjecture; "it was invented by the
original Yankee philosopher, a person named Socrates. I like it after
everything--I'm an American. I'm one of those rare birds in the Eastern
United States, a native of New York City."

"Well, then,"--her manner had, for the first time, the brightness which
goes with youth, plus the romantic adventure--"I like it not only after
anything but before anything--I'm an American, too."

A sense of irritation rose in him. He had let conjecture grow to
conclusion in the most reckless fashion. And why should he care so much
that he had risked offending a mere passing acquaintance of the road?