turned his face to her.
'Do you hear?' she repeated, shaking him. But he was dumb. She
fetched him a sharp slap on the face. He started and his eyes widened.
'Do you hear?' she repeated.
'What?' he said, bewildered, almost overcome.
'You've got to choose,' she cried, as if it were some terrible menace.
'What?' he said, in fear.
'Choose which of us you'll have, do you hear, and stop your little games.
We'll settle you.'
There was a pause. Again he averted his face. He was cunning in his
overthrow.
'All right then,' he said. 'I choose Annie.'
'Three cheers for Annie!' cried Laura.
'Me!' cried Annie. Her face was very white, her eyes like coal. 'Me--!'
Then she got up, pushing him 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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