Worse still, he tried to reason with her.
"I assure you that you are mistaken," he said in a soothing tone.

"I wish for your friendship with all my heart! Only, when you ask me--" "Oh, go away! For heaven's sake go away!" cried Marietta, almost choking, and turning her face quite away, so that he could only see the back of her head.
At the same time, she tapped the ground impatiently with her foot, and to make matters worse, the little basket of beads began to slip off her knees at the same moment.

She caught at it desperately, trying not to look round and half blinded by her tears, but she missed it, and but for Zorzi it would have fallen.

He put it into her hands very gently, but she was not in the least grateful.
"Oh, please go away!" she repeated.

"Can you not understand ?" He did not understand, but he obeyed her and turned away, very grave, very much puzzled by this new development of affairs, and sincerely wishing that some wise familiar spirit would whisper the explanation in his ear, since he could not possibly consult any living person.
She heard him go and she listened for the shutting of the laboratory door.