Heart Specialist Read Online Free PDF

she had added to Jane, “ I ’ m the sort of person who believes that marriage is, well, it doesn ’ t leave room for outside experiences. It ’ s something that claims you absolutely, and how can you enter into it unless you are sure —absolutely sure — ” in a slightly frightened voice “ —that you ’ re not making a mistake? My mother and father made one of the worst kinds of mistake! My father was a country doctor who was utterly content when he was in the country, jogging around seeing his patients and taking me to the pantomime once a year. My mother loved life—so they parted! ”
    “ That was unfortunate, ” Jane, who was ten years older than Valentine and worked for a firm of accountants, had to admit. “ But it doesn ’ t prove anything. We all have to buy our own experience, and the exciting part about it is that you can ’ t know in advance how things are going to turn out. If you did, you ’ d remain in a rut and miss some of the finest experiences life can offer. ” As Jane had had two short years of very happy marriage and then lost her husband in an airplane crash, she had a right to express her views.
    But Valentine had shaken her head.
    “ I don ’ t know ... I don ’ t know. You didn ’ t spend most of your young life in a boarding school and have the news of the final breakup of your home conveyed to you through your head mistress! Believe me, that is an experience that is very searing, and you don ’ t get over it quickly. And you vow you will be very cautious about your own future life! ”
    Jane had smiled at her.
    “ Rubbish! ” she had said softly but distinctly. “ When the time is ripe you ’ ll fall head over heels, like the rest of us! And just look at yourself— ” taking her to a mirror “ —do you imagine that with a face like that you ’ re going to be permitted to get away with an old maid ’ s portion? I know there aren ’ t any old maids nowadays, but whatever the true designation for them is, you won ’ t be one of them. Somewhere in this world there is a man who ’ ll knock a lot of nonsense out of your head—one day! ”
    But as she walked along the rue de Rivoli in the soft spring sunshine, Valentine was by no means certain of this. She wasn ’ t even certain that she liked men—or the men she had met so far! Dr. Leon Daudet, for instance, was a type who filled her with a feeling like prickly hostility. It was possible that his success comparatively early in life had given him a superiority complex, and if it was true—as Miss Constantia had said it was—that women made up the vast majority of his patients, then no doubt he thought he knew all there was to know about women and divided them into categories as soon as he met them.
    To him, Valentine was the type who was out for her own advancement, and that was why he had snubbed her in the beginning. If he had known about Miss Constantia ’ s will earlier, he would probably have urged her to put it right before it was too late, and her money would not have gotten into the grasping claws of a little English adventuress.
    It was quite possible that he was embarrassed by the bequest Miss Constantia had made him, because he didn ’ t really need it; but no doubt he would put it to excellent use when his first squeamishness over accepting it had worn off. He was not, so far as she knew, a married man, but as a fashionable doctor he almost certainly did a lot of entertaining and maintained a bachelor establishment suited to his status. If his car was anything to go by, the best was just about good enough for him!
    And he looked like a bachelor—hard, resistant, self - sufficient. If his life brought him in contact with so many members of her sex, from all walks of life—and some of them, no doubt, very highly placed ladies indeed—he had probably experienced a certain amount of difficulty in remaining single. But a man would have to be of more pliant material than he was to exchange a way of life