In that capacity she had been eager for his services, and grateful to him with a speechless, reverent gratitude that he felt to be much more than his due; but as a man, as a companion, as a friend, she had been simply unconscious of his existence.

When she had said to him at the beginning, "You will be lonely; there is no one on the island to whom you can speak as a friend," he perceived now that she had excluded herself as well as the absent world from his companionship.

It seemed to him that it had never once occurred to her that it was in her power to alter this.
Truly, if it had not been for Pembroke, the clergyman, Caius would never have had a companionable word; and he had found that there were limits to the interest he could take in Pembroke, that the stock of likings and disliking that they had in common was not great.

Then, too, since the day on which he had questioned him so vehemently about the relatives of Madame Le Maitre, he fancied that the clergyman had treated him with apprehensive reserve.
At the time when he had little or nothing to do, and when Madame Le Maitre had left Cloud Island, Caius would have been glad enough to go and explore the other islands, or to luxuriate again in the cookery of the old maids at the inn at which he had first been housed.

Two considerations kept him from this holiday-taking.