You Took My Heart Read Online Free

black dinner-frock, because she was still wearing mourning. But tonight the sombre hue did not match her mood and she longed for color. Perhaps Garth would have flowers for her. He had—a great spray of orchids, tawny and gold and mauve. They lent a touch of sophistication to Joan’s simple toilette.
    “They don’t look like Dipley-on-the-Marshes, do they?” she said, as she held them against her soft creamy shoulder. “Hot-house flowers—all glamorous and extravagant. I always feel orchids are a little sinister. They make me feel like a vamp with green eyelids.”
    “You don’t look like a vamp,” Garth said disappointingly, stooping to fasten the pin for her. He was very close for a moment, his hands shaking a little in their clumsiness, his lean face alight.
    He had waited for her in the foyer of his club, a dim, red-carpeted place with a forbiddingly masculine atmosphere.
    “Shall we have cocktails here or push on to the Berkeley right away?” he asked.
    Joan said, “Are we going to the Berkeley, Garth? Oh, how wonderful!”
    In the taxi he caught at her hand, turning its soft palm over, studying it. “It isn’t a nurse’s hand yet,” he said. “A year from now you’ll have hard little palms and nobbly knuckles—unless you’re extraordinarily lucky. All doctors and nurses acquire ugly hands burned with the constant application of disinfectants and hot water. Look at mine!” He held them out to her and gently her finger-tips touched them.
    “They’re nice hands, Garth,” she said, her voice a little shy suddenly.
    He said, “I hate to think of how hard you are going to work—how tired you’re going to be before you are done with St. Angela’s.”
    “But I like it, Garth,” she assured him. “It’s a gloriously interesting life.”
    “I can think of a much more interesting life for you,” he said softly. “Or at least I flatter myself that you might find it more interesting!”
    Joan flashed him a look. “ Interesting isn’t exactly the word I’d use for it,” she said unguardedly, and saw the dull red leap to his cheeks.
    “If I wasn’t tied up the way I am,” he said in a muffled voice, “I’d never dream of letting you start training. But as things are it is the only way to have you anywhere near me.”
    Joan didn’t answer that, but a warm glow of happiness flooded her. Garth did want to marry her, then, But he couldn’t because of the way things were. That meant economic things, of course. He had borrowed money to enable him to take over that expensive Welbeck Street practice. She knew that from the things Garth’s father had said to Dad. And something mysterious, called “overheads,” kept him constantly hard up. After all he was very young in his profession—a brilliant beginner. Later on, when he was better off financially, everything would be all right. She’d wait forever quite contentedly if only she were sure of his love, she told herself, and unconsciously moved nearer to him so that her soft, brown head all but touched his shoulder.
    His eyes were enigmatic, looking down at her. Disturbing eyes.
    Arriving at the restaurant broke the queer, tremulous silence between them. They were very gay all at once in the lofty room with its mulberry curtained windows. They ate spiced, deliciously chilled melon, smoked trout, and Garth ordered grouse, although it was so early in the season that they cost the earth. With the grouse they drank a smooth Chateau Lafitte, like melted rubies in the tall, slim glasses. Garth was clever about food, though poached eggs on toast would have tasted like ambrosia to Joan that evening. She was very happy, a throbbing ethereal happiness that turned the whole world into a shimmering rainbow dream.
    And Garth too was happy. They laughed easily as children as they chattered. Everything seemed to conspire to their gaiety. It was a rare hour of companionship. Then it was over and Garth was asking what she would like to do next.
    “There’s