“No?”
“That was I.”
“You! You’re much too tall.”
“If you thought me a boy I should seem much shorter,” she returned composedly.
“Do you mind telling me how you came to stand up as you did?”
“I always do when they play my national anthem. Do not you?”
The “do not you” gave the young man the clue to her speech, to the slightly exotic quality of it. It was less the accent than the clear precision of her use of words, without the slur or contraction of common usage. The charm of her soft and rather deep voice saved it from any taint of the pedantic.
“No,” said he.
“Ah? But perhaps you are not an American.”
“What else should I be?”