hat degeneracy is always trying to keep
under.... Power. A power in retreat, fighting to get back its lost
ground."

Then what she had loved was not John Conway. What she had hated was not
he. He was this Something, tremendous and necessary, that escaped your
judgment. You couldn't hurt it with your loving or hating or your ceasing
to love and hate. Something that tortured you and betrayed you because
that was the only way it knew to save itself.

Something that couldn't save itself altogether--that clung to you and
called to you to save it.

But that _was_ what she had loved. Nothing could touch it.

For a moment while McClane was talking she saw, in the flash he gave
her, that it was real. And when the flash went it slipped back into
her darkness.

But on the deck in front of her she could see John walking up and down.
She could see the wide road of gold and purple that stretched from the
boat's stern to the sun. John's head was thrown back; he looked at her
with his shining, adventurous eyes. He was happy and excited, going out
to the war.

And she saw them again: the batteries, the cars and the wagons. Dust like
blown smoke, and passing in it the long lines of beaten men, reeling
slowly to the footway, passing slowly, endlessly, regiment by regiment,
in retreat.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Romantic, by May Sinclair

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROMANTIC ***

***** This file should be named 13292.txt or 13292.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.net/1/3/2/9/13292/

Produced by Suzanne Shell, Beginners Projects, Mary Meehan and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.

Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of