Mathéus entered the principal room, and seating himself at the end of the deal table, gave himself up to judicious reflections, while Coucou Peter rinsed out the glasses, and ordered Soffayel to fetch a bottle of wolxheim to refresh the illustrious Doctor.
While the servant was gone to the cellar, Dame Catherina went up to the fiddler, and, laying her hand on his shoulder, said to him in a whisper—
“Coucou Peter, this gentleman is your friend?”
“My intimate friend, Dame Catherina.”
“A handsome man,” she said, looking him full in the face.
“Aha!” said Coucou Peter, looking at her in the same way and with a strange smile; “do you think so, Dame Catherina?”
“Yes, I think him quite a gentleman.”
“Ha! ha!” said Coucou Peter, “I should rather think so; a man with land of his own, a savant, a first-rate physician.”
“A physician, a man with an estate,” repeated Dame Catherina. “You haven’t told me all, Peter, I can see by your face. What has brought him here?”
“Ha! how sly you are, Dame Catherina!” cried Coucou Peter with a wink; “you see things any distance off! If I dare say all—but there are things——”