Marietta saw the door close after her father, and she knew that Zorzi must come back through the garden in a few moments.  She bent her head over her beads as she heard his step, and pretended not to see him.  When he came near her he stood still a moment, but she would not look up, and between annoyance and disappointment and confusion she felt that she was blushing, which she would not have had Zorzi see for anything.  She wondered why he did not go on.

“Have I offended you?” he asked, in a low voice.

Oddly enough, her embarrassment disappeared as soon as he spoke, and the blush faded away.

“No,” she answered, coldly enough.  “I am not angry—­I am only sorry.”

“But I am glad that I would not answer your question,” returned Zorzi.

“I doubt whether you had any answer to give,” retorted Marietta with a touch of scorn.

Zorzi’s brows contracted sharply and he made a movement to go on.  So her proffered friendship was worth no more than that, he thought.  She was angry and scornful because her curiosity was disappointed.  She could not have guessed his secret, he was sure, though that might account for her temper, for she would of course be angry if she knew that he loved her.  And she was angry now because he had refused to tell her so.  That was a woman’s logic, he thought, quite regardless of the defect in his own.  It was just like a woman!  He sincerely wished that he might tell her so.

In the presence of Marietta the man who had confronted sudden death less than twenty-four hours ago, with a coolness that had seemed imposing to other men, was little better than a girl himself.  He turned to go on, without saying more.  But she stopped him.

“I am sorry that you do not care for my friendship,” she said, in a hurt tone.  She could not have said anything which he would have found it harder to answer just then.

“What makes you think that?” he asked, hoping to gain time.

“Many things.  It is quite true, so it does not matter what makes me think it!”

She tried to laugh scornfully, but there was a quaver in her voice which she herself had not expected and was very far from understanding.  Why should she suddenly feel that she was going to cry?  It had seemed so ridiculous in poor Nella that morning.  Yet there was a most unmistakable something in her throat, which frightened her.  It would be dreadful if she should burst into tears over her beads before Zorzi’s eyes.  She tried to gulp the something:  down, and suddenly, as she bent over the basket, she saw the beautiful, hateful drops falling fast upon the little dry glass things; and even then, in her shame at being seen, she wondered why the beads looked, bigger through the glistening tears—­she remembered afterwards how they looked, so she must have noticed them at the time.

Zorzi knew too little of women to have any idea of what he ought to do under the circumstances.  He did not know whether to turn his back or to go away, so he stood still and looked at her, which was the very worst thing he could have done.  Worse still, he tried to reason with her.