away from her with a strange disgust.
'I wouldn't touch him,' she said.
The other girls rose also. He remained lying on the floor.
'I don't want him-he can choose another,' said Annie, with the same rather bitter disgust.
'Get up,' said Polly, lifting his shoulder. 'Get up.'
He rose slowly, a strange, ragged, dazed creature. The girls eyed him from a distance, curiously, furtively, dangerously.
'Who wants him?' cried Laura, roughly.
'Nobody,' they answered, with derision.
And they began to put themselves tidy, taking down their hair, and arranging it. Annie unlocked the door. John Joseph looked round for his things. He picked up the tatters, and did not quite know what to do with them. Then he found his cap, and put it on, and then his overcoat. He rolled his ragged tunic into a bundle. And he went silently out of the room, into the night.
The girls continued in silence to dress their hair and adjust their clothing, as if he had never existed.
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