'He's chosen Annie!' said the girls in chorus.
'Me!' cried Annie. She was still kneeling, but away from him. He was
still lying prostrate, with averted face. The girls grouped uneasily
around.
'Me!' repeated Annie, with a terrible bitter accent.
Then she got up, drawing away from him with strange disgust and
bitterness.
'I wouldn't touch him,' she said.
But her face quivered with a kind of agony, she seemed as if she would
fall. The other girls turned aside. He remained lying on the floor, with
his torn clothes and bleeding, averted face.
'Oh, if he's chosen--' said Polly.
'I don't want him--he can choose again,' said Annie, with the same rather
bitter hopelessness.
'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 contempt. Yet each one of them waited for
him to look at her, hoped he would look at her. All except Annie, and
something was broken in her.
He, however, kept his face closed and averted from them all. There was a
silence of the end. He picked up the torn pieces of his tunic, without
knowing what to do with them. The girls stood about uneasily, flushed,
panting, tidying their hair and their dress unconsciously, and watching
him. He looked at none of them.
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