He let the noise die out, after her outburst. Partly because he didn't know how to address her points, other than pointing out what she already knew - he was made, in his current existence, to hurt people. He was aware that he shouldn't have, but that wasn't the same as having control over it.

Instead, he focused his analysis on at least attempting to see things from the other perspective. Not emotionally, he couldn't, or couldn't afford to, do that. But he could attempt to see more points of view. It was better than following what his trained reflexes said. Go in for the kill.

"I suppose," he said, slowly, "there are at least two ways to take my question. It could be fishing for more information. Trying to get data on how to do it again. Or, it could be my trying to find out how to stop doing what I was trained. Is there anything not like that which I could do to prove to you which one it is?"

Saying sorry might have helped, but that wasn't one of the courses of action that had fully come back to him, and it had definitely not been programmed in even once, over the last seven decades.