"My God! this great cook a doctor! And he is the uncle of Captain Horace!" murmured the canon, stunned by the revelation. "He is not a real cook! Oh, illusion of illusions!"
The doctor remained silent and imperturbable.
"Hey, have you been duped enough?" asked the abbé. "Have you played a sufficiently ridiculous rôle? And do you now believe that the illustrious Doctor Gasterini, one of the princes of science, who has fifty thousand a year income, would hire himself to you as a cook? Was I wrong in saying that you had been made a scoff and jeer for other persons' amusement?"
Every word from the abbé exasperated the anger, the grief, and the despair of the canon. The last remark above all. "Do you think the celebrated Doctor Gasterini would hire himself for wages," gave a mortal blow to the last illusions that Dom Diégo cherished. Turning to the doctor, he said, with an ill-concealed anger:
"Ah, sir, do you recollect the evil you have done me? I may die of it, perhaps, but I will have my revenge, if not on you, at least on that rascal, your nephew, and on my unworthy niece, who, no doubt, is also in this abominable intrigue!"
"Well, courage, Dom Diégo; this righteous vengeance will not tarry," said Abbé Ledoux.
Then he turned to the doctor, and said, sarcastically:
"Ah, doctor, you are doubtless a very shrewd, clever man, but you know the best players sometimes lose the best games, and you will lose this one!"
"Perhaps," said the doctor, smiling; "who knows?"
"Come, my dear abbé, come," cried the canon, pale and exasperated; "come, let us see the king's attorney, and then we will hasten the departure of my niece."
"To employ arms so perfidious, so disloyal! to deceive a confiding and inoffensive man with this odious Machiavellism! I who have eaten with my eyes shut, I who have taken delight upon the very brink of an abyss! Ah, sir, it is abominable, but I will have my revenge!"
"And this very instant," said the abbé. "Come, Dom Diégo, follow me. A thousand pardons, my dear doctor, to leave you so abruptly, but you understand moments are precious."
The canon, boiling with rage, was about to follow the abbé when Doctor Gasterini said, in a calm voice:
"If you listen to him, you are lost, Dom Diégo!" cried the abbé, dragging the canon with him. "The evil spirit himself is not more insidious than this infernal doctor. Decide for yourself after the trick he has played on you. Come, come!"