The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romantic, by May Sinclair

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Title: The Romantic

Author: May Sinclair

Release Date: August 25, 2004 [EBook #13292]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE ROMANTIC

BY MAY SINCLAIR

1920

_Every kind and beautiful thing on earth has been made so by some
cruelty_.

Saying of the Romantic

CONTENTS

BOOK ONE Charlotte Redhead

BOOK TWO John Roden Conway

THE ROMANTIC

BOOK ONE

CHARLOTTE REDHEAD

I

They turned again at the end of the platform.

The tail of her long, averted stare was conscious of him, of his big,
tweed-suited body and its behaviour, squaring and swelling and tightening
in its dignity, of its heavy swing to her shoulder as they turned.

She could stave off the worst by not looking at him, by looking at other
things, impersonal, innocent things; the bright, yellow, sharp gabled
station; the black girders of the bridge; the white signal post beside it
holding out a stiff, black-banded arm; the two rails curving there, with
the flat white glitter and sweep of scythes; pointed blades coming
together, buried in the bend of the cutting.

Small three-cornered fields, clean edged like the pieces of a puzzle, red
brown and pure bright green, dovetailed under the high black bar of the
bridge. She supposed you could paint that.

Turn.

Clear stillness after the rain. She caught herself smiling at the noise
her boots made clanking on the tiles with the harsh, joyous candour that
he hated. He walked noiselessly, with a jerk of bluff knickerbockered
hips, raising himself on his toes like a cat.

She could see him moving about in her room, like that, in the half
darkness, feeling for his things, with shamed, helpless gestures. She
could see him tiptoeing down her staircase, furtive, afraid. Always
afraid they would be found out.

That would have ruined him.

Oh well--why should he ha