My father is dead--and my mother as well--and I have no friends in the world except these two old men, who love me, and have done their best to spoil me." Her eyes grew humid and her voice trembled.
No other friends in the world! Strange to say, this young man felt a little sense of relief.

No other friends.

He ought to have sympathized with the girl's loneliness; he might have asked her how she could possibly endure life without companionship, but he did not; he only felt that other friends might have been rough and ill-bred; this girl derived her refinement, not only from nature, but also from separation from the other girls who might in the ordinary course have been her friends and associates.

And if no other friends, then no lover.
Arnold was only going to visit the young lady as her brother; but lovers do not generally approve the introduction of such novel effects as that caused by the appearance of a brand-new and previously unsuspected brother.

He was glad, on the whole, that there was no lover.
Then he left her, and went home to his studio, where he sat till midnight, sketching a thousand heads one after the other with rapid pencil.