He did not.

Perhaps because it seemed so grotesque, perhaps because it was easier to drift.

Besides, as he said to himself, he would soon go to join the yacht at Gibraltar, and all this would be over-over.

All this?
All what?
A gipsy, a dompteuse--what was she to him?
She interested him, he liked her, and she liked him, but there had been nothing more between them.

Near as he was to her now, he very often saw her in his mind's eye as she passed over Ridley Common, looking towards him, her eyes shaded by her hand.
She, too, had continually said to herself that this man could be nothing to her--nothing, never! Yet, why not?
Count Ploare had offered her his hand.