But Zorzi judged differently.

He had a sensitiveness that was rather manly than masculine; he had scruples of which he was not ashamed, but which most men would laugh at; he had delicacies of conscience in his most private thoughts such as would have been more natural in a cloistered nun, living in ignorance of the world, than in a waif who had faced it at its worst, and almost from childhood.

Innocent as his dream had been, he resolved to part with it, and never to dream it again.

He was glad that Marietta had taken back the rose he had picked up yesterday; if she had not, he would have forced himself to throw it away, and that would have hurt him.
So he began his day in a melancholy mood, as having buried out of sight for ever something that was very dear to him.

In time, his love of his art would fill the place of the other love, but on this first day he went about in silence, with hungry eyes and tightened lips, like a man who is starving and is too proud to ask a charity.
He waited for Beroviero at the door of his house, as he did every morning, to attend him to the laboratory.