Awakened Heart, chapter 1

This is a ridiculous set of tags to have on one post! Betts wrote by formula, natch, but this is ridiculous.
Sophie is a beautiful Night Casualty Sister at a London hospital. Dr. Rijk van Taak ter Wijsma (!) is a visiting brain surgeon. They meet because she gets the heel of her shoe wedged in a gutter. She has two plastic shopping bags in her hands, so she can't bend down to unlace the shoe, because heaven forbid she get a plastic bag on the wet ground. She just stands there in the rain, patiently waiting until the Betts hero comes to free her.
No, no, I'm not speaking metaphorically. This is what happens, really!
This is a first so far in this blog: Rijk thinks Sophie is attractive and good at her work, so he comes over to ask her out. He asks her out, as though they're ordinary people, not a controlling man and a doormat of a woman! She's not thrilled by the idea of going out with him, because he's arrogant about so doing, but still - I'm encouraged by any signs of normalcy in a Betts novel.
Oh, but then at the end of the chapter he becomes something of a stalker - coming over to ask whether she wanted a date was forgiveable (though: how did he know exactly where she lived?). But when they go out for a few hours (the aforementioned, almost normal date - or so I thought), he has found out which small town she came from. He asked a co-worker. Despite this rather creepy invasion of privacy, he's less awful than other Betts heroes I could mention.