She was not acting a very great lie, either, as she passed René. As she saw the pallor on his cheeks, caused by three days' anguish, and the look of despair in his eyes, she would have given much to be able to stop the brougham, to get out or to make him get in, and to exclaim as she carried him off, 'I love you as much as you love me!' Instead of that she drove on to do her shopping and pay her calls, sure now that the second letter so impatiently expected would not be long in coming. It came the same afternoon, but just when its arrival presented most danger. And for this reason. Having gone home immediately after meeting Suzanne, René had written her four pages in feverish haste, and in order that they might reach her sooner and more safely, he had sent them about five o'clock by a commissionaire; the letter was therefore handed to Suzanne by her manservant whilst Desforges was with her. He had come, as he often did at that hour, with a dainty little present; this time it was a pretty needle-case in old gold which he had picked up at a sale. No sooner had she recognised the writing on the envelope than she said to herself, 'The least sign of emotion and the Baron will smell a rat!' As sometimes happens, the fear of betraying her agitation made it more difficult for her to conceal it. She took the letter, looked at the address as we do when trying to guess from whom a communication comes, tore it open and skimmed its contents, after having first cast a glance at the signature; then, getting up to place it amongst some others on her desk, she said: 'Another, begging letter! It's astonishing how many I've had lately. How do you manage with them, Frédéric?' 'I have a very simple plan,' replied the Baron. 'Fifty francs the first time of asking, twenty francs the second, nothing the third. My secretary has orders to that effect. That's one of the fads I don't believe in--charity! Just as if it were through want of money that the poor are poor! It's their disposition that has made them so, and that you'll never change. Look here, take this person who is sponging on you to-day; I'll bet twenty-five pounds that if you inquire about him you'll find that fortune, or at least a competency, has been in his grasp ten times during his life. If you were to set him up afresh he would be in the same plight in a few years from now. Not that I mind giving, and as much as people want--but as to believing that money so spent is of the least use, that's a different thing altogether. And then these benefactors and lady patronesses--I know them; it's all advertisement--a means of making their way into Society and of getting hold of good people.' 'That's enough,' said Suzanne, 'you are a terrible sceptic.' And with that delicate irony that women sometimes use in avenging themselves upon the man who compels them to lie, she added, 'You're not one to be easily duped.'