"I am not a financier!
I am a man of science. I seek to know; I do not seek to make a
fortune."
"Shocking!" Charles exclaimed. "Shocking! I never before in my life
beheld so strange an instance of complete insensibility to the
claims of others!"
We separated early. The men of science were coarsely jubilant. The
diamond interest exhibited a corresponding depression. If this news
were true, they foresaw a slump. Every eye grew dim. It was a
terrible business.
Charles walked homeward with the Professor. He sounded him gently as
to the sum required, should need arise, to purchase his secrecy.
Already Sir Adolphus had bound us all down to temporary silence--as
if that were necessary; but Charles wished to know how much
Schleiermacher would take to suppress his discovery. The German
was immovable.
"No, no!" he replied, with positive petulance. "You do not
unterstant. I do not buy and sell. Zis is a chemical fact. We must
bublish it for the sake off its seoretical falue. I do not care
for wealse. I haff no time to waste in making money."
"What an awful picture of a misspent life!" Charles observed to me
afterwards.
And, indeed, the man seemed to care for nothing on earth but the
abstract question--not whether he could make good diamonds or not,
but whether he could or could not produce a crystalline form of
pure carbon!
On the appointed night Charles went back to Lancaster Gate, as I
could not fail to remark, with a strange air of complete and painful
preoccupation.
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