He had seen, sitting on his bed and looking at him with mild, kind eyes his old Friend.

His Friend was always the same, conveying so absolutely kindness and protection, and his beard, his hands, the appealing humour of his gaze, recalled to John the early years, with a swift, imperative urgency.
John, so independent and assured, felt, nevertheless, again that old alarm of a strange, unreal world, and the necessity of an appeal for protection from the only one of them all who understood.
"Hallo!" said John.
"Well ?" said his Friend.

"It's many months since I've been to see you, isn't it ?" "That's not my fault," said John.
"In a way, it is.

You haven't wanted me, have you?
Haven't given me a thought." "There's been so much to do.

I'm going to school, you know." "Of course.