Page:The Great Secret.djvu/37

Rh purpose of picking up an heiress. He was after that illusive pursuit still, with less chance than ever of hooking her.

At the age of twenty-three (he was forty-eight now and rotund), he might have had a prospect of settling himself in life, had he not been too exacting in his demands, for women have a weakness towards doctors and parsons, and he had his chances with the elderly spinsters and widows, towards Hymen inclined, and nearly all sentimental, who are to be met going out or coming home, but like most miniature men, he thought no small beer of his attractions, and put a high market value on them.

At twenty-three he had been slender, small-waisted, and possibly lively, with sparkling black eyes, white teeth, and doll-like hands and feet, neat in his get-up, as if he had come out of a band-box—a little darling of a doctor, in fact, he must have been then, full of the latest conceits of his profession, and fresh-coloured, for he had never worked very hard at college nor taken higher honours than were needful to slip him through.

At forty-eight he still retained his doll-like hands and feet, but with twenty-five years' steady indulgence at the lavish tables provided by the company, no proper exercise and no brain efforts, he had grown bilious-eyed, pasty-cheeked, pot-bellied, and when he walked, waddled like a swan who was taking a promenade; his medical knowledge was a quarter of a century behind date, and he yet aspired to youth, beauty and wealth in his life partner, hence Mr Valentine Chiver was still a bachelor.

He was dull as ditch-water in his conversation; his eyes were like those of a robin redbreast in shape, only without the sparkle; he sighed often, as people suffering