He needed her Friendship--if he might never have her love he needed _that_.

And if she were to pass like this from his life....

If the Light were to go out ...
and all the long, dark way of the Future still to be faced....

Something within him seemed to writhe.

He took his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger and squeezed it hard.
That he had hoped for some token, some word--forwarded through Mr.
Narkom--he did not quite realise until he got back to Clarges Street and found that there was none.
Followed a sense of despair, a moment of deep dejection, that passed in turn and gave place to a feeling of personal injury, of savage resentment, and of the ferocity which comes when the half-tamed wolf wakes to the realisation that here is nothing before it evermore, but the bars of the cage and the goad of the keeper; and that far and away in the world there are still the free woods, the naked body of Nature, and the savage company of its kind.
Under the stress of that gust of passion, he sent Dollops flying from the room.