To-day the state of her mind and feelings prompted Suzanne herself to say, as soon as she had entered the room, 'I am very sorry, Frédéric dear, but I shall have to leave you rather early.' 'Has it put you out to come?' asked the Baron as he helped her off with her cloak. 'Why didn't you send me a line to countermand our appointment?' 'He is really too kind,' thought Suzanne, feeling some slight remorse for her unnecessary fib. Taking her hat off before the glass the flash of her diamond earrings caught her eye, and suddenly reminded her of all that she owed this man, who asked for so little in return. False situations sometimes give rise to conscientious paradoxes, and it was a feeling of honesty that impelled this woman to come and seat herself on the arm of the Baron's easy chair and to sigh, 'I should have been terribly disappointed myself. Will you never believe that I am really glad to come here?--I owe him that at least,' she thought, and in further obedience to her strange qualms of conscience she contrived to be more than usually fascinating and docile during the whole of their _tête-à-tête._ At the end of a couple of hours, whilst she was lying back half buried in one of the great arm-chairs, enjoying a caviar sandwich and a thimbleful of fine old sherry, Desforges, who was watching her dainty movements as she ate, could not help exclaiming: 'Ah! Suzon! At my age, too! What would Noirot say?' This Noirot who had so suddenly troubled the Baron's mind was a doctor who treated him to a course of massage every morning and watched over his general health. Everything in the life of this systematic voluptuary was carefully planned out, from the amount of exercise to be taken each day to the attendance he should receive when in his dotage. He had taken into his house a poor and pious female relative, to whose good works he annually subscribed a pretty round sum. When complimented on his generosity, he would reply in his own jocular and cynical way: 'What can I do? I must have some one to look after me in my old age. My cousin will be my nurse, and make the best one in Paris.'