"Passable!" cried the canon, "say rather, divine! But what means this—"
"I comprehend all!" replied Abbé Ledoux, after having remained silent and thoughtful a moment, "the plot was skilfully contrived."
"What is it that you comprehend, abbé? Of what plot are you talking?" said the canon, who, after his first astonishment, began to wonder how a physician could be such an extraordinary cook. "I pray you explain yourself, abbé!"
"Do you know, Dom Diégo," asked the abbé, with a bitter smile, "who Doctor Gasterini is?"
"But," stammered the canon, wiping the perspiration from his brow, for he had been making superhuman efforts to penetrate the mystery, "everything is so complicated—so strange—that—"
"Doctor Gasterini," cried the abbé, "is the uncle of Captain Horace! Do you understand now, Dom Diégo, the diabolical trick the doctor has played you? Do you understand that he has played upon your deplorable gluttony in order to get such a hold on you that he might induce you to abandon your pursuit of Captain Horace, his nephew, and afterward to induce you to consent to the marriage of your niece and the captain? Do you understand at last to what point you have been duped? Do you see the depth of the abyss you have escaped?"
"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: