"It iss bad," she said; "there are words here you must not use." (It is impossible to give dialectic form to her quaint variations from normal pronunciation.) By and by we found an example.
"Yes," she said, "sukimas means 'I like.' I like flowers, birds, and so on, but you must not use that—" with one pointed finger on a word that I proceeded straightway to damn forever.
"What is the proper word for that word?"
"Ai suru," she said.
"And what does that mean?"
A vertical line of mental effort broke the smoothness of her forehead.
"It iss deeper than 'like.'"
"Oh," I said. She continued her mental search for an English equivalent. I tried to help.
"Love?" I ventured.
With straight eyes she met purely impersonal inquiry with response even more impersonal.