"I sleep—Zlcha
"I love—Levza"
When I saw this last entry I looked suspiciously at the professor.
Was he trying to make love without our knowing it to the beautiful captive from Mars?
If so, I felt certain that he would get himself into difficulty. She had made a deep impression upon every man in the flagship, and I knew that there was more than one of the younger men who would promptly have called him to account if they had suspected him of trying to learn from those beautiful lips the words, "I love."
I pictured to myself the state of mind of Colonel Alonzo Jefferson Smith if, in my place, he had glanced over the notebook and read what I had read.
And then I thought of another handsome young fellow in the flagship—Sydney Phillips—who, if mere actions and looks could make him so, had become exceedingly devoted to this long lost and happily recovered daughter of Eve.
In fact, I had already questioned within my own mind whether the peace would be strictly kept between Colonel Smith and Mr. Phillips, for the former had, to my knowledge, noticed the young fellow's adoring glances, and had begun to regard him out of the corners of his eyes as if he considered him no better than an Apache.
"But what," I asked myself, "would be the vengeance that Colonel Smith would take upon this skinny professor from Heidelberg if he thought that he, taking advantage of his linguistic powers, had stepped in between him and the damsel whom he had rescued?"
However, when I took a second look at the professor, I became convinced that he was innocent of any such amorous intentions, and that he had learned, or believed he had learned, the word for "love" simply in pursuances of the method by which he meant to acquire the language of the girl.