Heart Specialist Read online

  “Oh, but I’m not a particular friend of Dr. Daudet’s!” Valentine thought it best to enlighten her immediately, and as the doctor was out of earshot, talking by the window with the comte, she could do so without being overheard. “He ... I... he is just being ... rather kind!”

  The marquise smiled.

  “Because he feels perhaps, that you need a little kindness and protection—because you are young!” She smiled complacently. “That is as I thought!”

  Valentine looked down at her hands.

  “Dr. Daudet attended Miss Constantia, who was my employer, in her last illness—which was actually very sudden,” she explained. “And since then he has tried to advise me. He has done so because, well, things were a little unexpected.”

  The marquise patted her shoulder.

  “I know all about that, my dear, but we will not discuss it. And it is the unexpected things that are so exciting, don’t you think? Now that you are going to stay here in Paris with us you must begin to feel like the very young woman that you are and forget that your circumstances were perhaps not always quite so carefree. You must begin to realize that youth comes to us only once in a lifetime, and every moment of it has to be enjoyed. But don’t tell Leon I recommend you spread your wings, for somehow I do not think he would approve!” And she looked across the room at her nephew with the quizzical expression clinging about her mouth as well as in her eyes. “And whatever you do, don’t take Philippe seriously under any circumstances!” she added warningly under her breath. “He has a charm which is quite devastating when he chooses to exert it, but the villain is also quite unscrupulous!”

  “Now that is basely unfair, Tante Minette,” Philippe objected immediately, proving as he turned that he not only had very sharp ears, but that he had been quite unashamedly listening while apparently carrying on a conversation with the doctor. “I am fully prepared to bring the entire battery of my charms to bear On Miss Brooke, if she will permit me to see her again once she has left here this afternoon. And if as a result of what you have just said she won’t let me have her address, then I’ll use bribery and corruption to get it out of you!”

  “There! What did I say?” the marquise said, spreading her white soft hands sparkling with many rings.

  But on the way home Valentine admitted to the doctor that she thought the Comte de Villeneuve was amusing, “He seems to be quite uninhibited, and that is attractive,” she said.

  “If you admire a lack of inhibition in a man, well, I suppose it is,” Dr. Daudet agreed dryly. “But Philippe is exactly what Tante Minette said he is—unscrupulous. He has no money and he likes to live well, and usually he manages to do so. He will almost certainly pursue you!”

  “What for?” she asked innocently. “My particular brand of attractiveness, or my fifteen million francs?”

  “He would regard that as a drop in the bucket, but there is Chaumont.”

  “And Chaumont is worth as much again?”

  “Considerably more. Chaumont houses some valuable collections, all realizable.”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t think the comte would sell his soul and his freedom for some valuable collections.”

  “You may be right,” he agreed. “He is a bit of a rover, and a wife would handicap the instincts of a rover.”

  Then after a few minutes he asked, “Have you examined the contents of Miss Constantia’s jewel box yet? There are some valuable pieces in that, you know, and you could have them reset if you wanted to.”

  “I haven’t looked at it,” she admitted. She had put it away in a place of safety when it was handed over to her, and somehow she couldn’t bring herself to pry into Miss Constantia’s personal possessions at this early stage. Perhaps when Jane arrived they might examine it together. “But it is quite safe,” she added.

  “It would be safer in the bank, if it isn’t already there,” he told her. “But you do realize that the contents of that jewel box are yours? Whatever happens!”

  She nodded her head mutely.

  “You could have one or two pieces reset,” he said again. He sent her a sideways glance. “Now is the time when you should feel interested in trinkets. And you are pretty enough to do them justice.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He concentrated on the road ahead and the lights that were flashing like dragonflies through the soft spring dusk.

  “By the way, you did write to your friend in England?” he asked.

  “To Jane? Yes. She has given her notice—unfortunately it had to be a month’s notice—and she will be with me soon.”

  “Good!” he exclaimed and he really sounded as if he meant it.

  Just before they reached the apartment he asked her another question. “What do you do with yourself, now that you are so much alone and all your time is your own? Oh, I know you have a very ardent admirer,” he said with extreme dryness, “waiting to take you out and about at the drop of a handkerchief, and apparently he knows the right places to take you to—” it was the first time he had referred to the evening before, and she wondered secretly what his opinion of Peter was “—but knowing certain views you hold. I don’t imagine you will give him unlimited encouragement. In any case, unlimited encouragement is never wise unless you’re absolutely certain in your own mind what you want!”

  She was silent and afterward she was to puzzle over this somewhat abstruse observation he had made. She finally decided that he had meant it to be abstruse. But just then she thought he sounded the least bit peevish, and her daily doings could hardly be of interest to him, so she said nothing. Then she remembered the invitation she had received from Maitre Dubonnet—or rather, the wife of Maitre Dubonnet.

  “I shall be going out tomorrow night.” she said, “to the house of Monsieur Dubonnet. They are giving a dinner party, and I am to be one of the guests.”

  “In that case you should have a pleasant evening.” he said. “The Dubonnets are delightful people, and the people they invite are usually very pleasant, too.”

  She wouldn’t have been in the least surprised if he had admitted that he had received an invitation as well: but he didn’t, and it crossed her mind as being just a little strange when he seemed to have much in common with the Dubonnets and was obviously in close touch with their circle of friends.

  Therefore, when she arrived at the Dubonnets the following evening and found him among the guests, she couldn’t help showing her surprise. He smiled inexplicably as he took her hand, but he said nothing, apart from hoping she had enjoyed her visit to his aunt the previous day.

  Monsieur Dubonnet was the ideal host, and his wife was charming. She was almost naively interested in Valentine and placed her between an elderly bachelor professor and a young law student at the table, and said, as Madame Faubourg had said, that they must get to know one another. For once Dr. Daudet was not accompanied by Madame Faubourg, but his place at the table was obviously a place of honor, on the right hand of his hostess.

  Valentine enjoyed the evening, but she would have enjoyed it a great deal more if she hadn’t been puzzling out in her mind—or attempting to puzzle out—the reason why Leon Daudet, having been told about the invitation she had received, hadn’t admitted to having received an invitation himself.

  It could be, she thought, that he thought he might have had to offer to drive her there and spare her the journey in a taxi, if he had admitted he was to be a guest of the Dubonnets. Perhaps he was often pressed for time, and it would have been inconvenient picking her up. But somehow she didn’t think that was the reason. He had put himself out before to give her a lift, and it would have required only a very brief detour to pick her up at the apartment and then drive her to the Dubonnets.

  Why, then, was it ...?

  He was looking almost disturbingly handsome tonight—and for the first time she recognized that he really was handsome—and very confident and immaculate in his evening clothes. A white tie suited him, as she hadn’t neglected to notice on t
he only other occasion when she had seen him dressed for a formal evening. On that occasion, when he had selected the same restaurant as the one Peter Fairfield had chosen for her own entertainment, the dark swarthiness of his skin had struck her as very noticeable in contrast with the whiteness of his shirt and waistcoat. Tonight, looking along the length of the lovely rosewood table, with its flowers and lace tablemats, sparkling silver and glass, to where he sat beside his hostess, she couldn’t help but observe how the light from the old-fashioned chandelier that swung from the ceiling shone down on the sleekness of his slightly bent head, with the little patches of frost at his temples, and she noticed what an unusually well-poised head it was.

  His profile was clear-cut and without any signs of self-indulgence, his shoulders were broad, but not too broad. There were diamonds in his shirt cuffs and in the front of his waistcoat, but there was nothing vulgar about the way in which they flashed in the light. He was elegant without carrying his elegance to extremes, and above all, he was intensely masculine.

  He looked up suddenly and their eyes met. She noticed again that his eyes were composed of fluid darkness, and the thought crossed her mind that if one gazed long enough into that fluid darkness one would become submerged by it and perhaps drown in it.

  And then the very next instant she felt acutely self-conscious because she had thought such a thought and something leaped in her throat like an uncontrollable pulse and disturbed her still more. His eyes were unsmiling, not exactly grave, but thoughtful; and they seemed to be dwelling on her deliberately, as if he was turning over something in his mind in connection with her, and even assessing her potentialities.

  She was wearing her black net dress that emphasized the extreme fairness of her skin and hair, and she felt suddenly as if the whole area of fair skin that was not concealed by the cloudy properties of the dress was turning slightly but definitely pink under his unwavering and almost deliberately embarrassing scrutiny.

  Her slender neck, the tips of her ears, her wide attractive brow ... Even her cheeks started to vibrate a little with color, as if the pulse that had leaped in her throat had affected two others beneath her light makeup, and they were palpitating. And deep down inside her, apart from a growing confusion, something seemed to be awaking from a deep sleep, and she was filled with the oddest sensations.

  On one side of her the professor was talking about education and the unrivaled advantages of the Sorbonne. On the other, the young law student was waiting until she finished staring across the table to claim her attention, and realizing that he was waiting she dragged her eyes away from the one glance that compelled hers and said something quickly and apologetically, and the law student felt that at least he had scored over the professor.

  For the remainder of the time that dinner lasted Valentine purposefully refrained from looking down the length of the table, and afterward she was glad that in the drawing room her hostess fastened onto her, and there was no opportunity for her attention to wander. One or two other guests talked to her, and she received several invitations to visit houses that she had not so far visited, and the law student hung around in her vicinity in the hopes that she might spare him a few moments before the evening broke up.

  But Dr. Daudet didn’t come anywhere near the end of the room in which she was seated until the hour arrived when she knew she would have to leave. Her host said at once that he would drive her home, but then the doctor came forward and assured him that that wasn’t in the least necessary, because he could quite easily drive Miss Brooke home.

  “I was just thinking of leaving, in any case,” he said. He looked once more directly at Valentine. “I have a patient who is causing me a certain amount of concern and whom I must visit,” he added. “I can drop Miss Brooke on the way there.”

  Valentine stood up and said her good-nights, and then in her hostess’s bedroom she donned her wrap and made a few scarcely noticeable repairs to her makeup, after which she joined the doctor in the hall.

  She thought he seemed unusually tall as he stood looking down at her for a moment. Then her hostess kissed her somewhat impulsively, begged her to look in whenever she pleased, and the doctor placed her in his car.

  As they drove away she had the feeling that within the enclosed space of the car she was physically closer to him than she had ever been before.

  CHAPTER NINE

  As they drove AWAY from the lit front of the house the doctor said smoothly, “Well, I am sure you were a great success. Madame Dubonnet obviously took an enormous fancy to you, and that young man who sat next to you at dinner is probably at this very moment scheming how soon he can attempt to get in touch with you again!” Valentine ignored the reference to the young man and replied that she had thoroughly enjoyed meeting her hostess. She had taken to Monsieur Dubonnet immediately, because he was so very kindly, and his wife had impressed her with her warm friendliness. It was a friendly household, and everyone had been slightly more than kind.

  “You’re not really a difficult person to be kind to, you know,” Leon Daudet observed, driving rather carefully because the streets were wet after a shower of rain, and there were little oil patches that showed up in the broad road ahead, as well as the reflections of shop signs and window displays. “And at the moment, of course, you’re the least bit of a sensation!”

  “You mean—” looking at him quickly sideways “—because of Miss Constantia?”

  He shrugged slightly.

  “Miss Constantia has let you in for some limelight, but you mustn’t mind. There are compensations, aren’t there?”

  “Are there?” Just then she really wondered whether there really were compensations. All at once she was feeling acutely lonely, in spite of his nearness in the confined space of the car, and almost perturbed about the curious emptiness of her whole future as it stretched ahead of her.

  “At your age there are always compensations, and merely being alive when you’re only twenty-three should be an excitement in itself!”

  She said nothing. The theatre signs dazzled her, and he was staring intently ahead.

  “My aunt was enchanted by your visit yesterday afternoon,” he told her. “She hopes you will repeat it soon.”

  “That is most kind of the marquise,” she replied. And then she added, “I hope when I am her age I will look as delightful as she does. Her complexion is perfect, and I have never seen such beautiful white hair!”

  “You will,” he assured her. “You have the same fair skin and coloring.”

  “But your aunt has dark eyes. They are wonderful!”

  “Blue eyes are appealing.”

  She thought it better not to reply to this.

  “I’m afraid I didn’t realize you were taking me to see a real live marquise,” she said. “When you mentioned you had an aunt who would be interested in meeting me, I thought she was someone like, well, like Miss Constantia.”

  “Miss Constantia left far more money behind her than my aunt has handled in years,” he returned. “You mustn’t be misled by appearances and a family house. Her son is always having to cut down on something or other in order to live. At the present he’s in South Africa, because that is the climate that suits him.”

  “Then he is an invalid?”

  “He has a chest weakness. But as I said, South Africa suits him.”

  “Then your aunt must often be lonely. I’m sorry.” He smiled without turning his head.

  “Drop in and see her whenever you feel like it, and she’ll be less lonely,”

  The theater signs and the display windows had been left behind, but for some time she didn’t realize it, continually asking herself a question that vexed her. Why hadn’t he told her the day before that he was dining at the Dubonnet house tonight? Or hadn’t he, at that time, received an invitation? No, that was hardly likely.

  “You’re wondering why I didn’t let you know I would see you tonight,” he said suddenly. “Well, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t quite certain about it. A doctor nev
er can be absolutely certain of his movements, you know.”

  “A G.P., like my father was, can never be certain of his movements, but I would have thought anyone as exalted as yourself could be reasonably certain of them.” He laughed softly.

  “Am I exalted?”

  “Oh, yes, of course! Miss Constantia told me you were Paris’s leading heart specialist, and that your women patients outnumbered your male ones by about three to one. She also said you knew all there was to be known about the human heart.”

  His laughter this time had an ingredient of genuine amusement in it, although it was still very low.

  “Not all about the human heart! The physical heart!”

  “You don’t pretend to be a specialist on its emotional functions?”

  “They,” he admitted, “are quite beyond me.”

  All at once she remembered the patient he was anxious about and realized they were taking a great deal of time to reach her apartment. They seemed to have been traveling at considerable speed, too, in spite of the wet roads. Now there were no lights, only the trees forming dark shapes at the sides of the road and a feeling of loneliness beyond the trees. It was no longer raining. She could see one or two stars, and low down on the horizon the last quarter of the moon was lifting itself into a cloudy sky.

  “Why,” she exclaimed, “this is all strange to me! Does your patient live in an out-of-the-way place?”

  “My patient?” He sounded puzzled.

  “The one you were anxious about.”

  “Oh!” He didn’t laugh this time, but she could see how his white teeth flashed as he smiled. “That was a patient who existed solely in my imagination, but he was very useful because he enabled me to offer to drive you home. And as we left at quite an early hour I thought a drive into the country might do us both good, and you could tell me a lot of things about yourself that I don’t know.”