The aspect of her father, half-kneeling beside the instrument, and receiving the full strength of the sunlight upon his head, the protuberances of his skull, its scanty hairs resembling threads of silver, his face contracted by the agonies of expectation, the strangeness of the objects that surrounded him, the obscurity of parts of the vast garret from which fantastic engines seemed about to spring, all contributed to startle Marguerite, who said to herself, in terror,—
“He is mad!”
Then she went up to him and whispered in his ear, “Send away Lemulquinier.”
“No, no, my child; I want him: I am in the midst of an experiment no one has yet thought of. For the last three days we have been watching for every ray of sun. I now have the means of submitting metals, in a complete vacuum, to concentrated solar fires and to electric currents. At this very moment the most powerful action a chemist can employ is about to show results which I alone—”
“My father, instead of vaporizing metals you should employ them in paying your notes of hand—”
“Wait, wait!”
“Monsieur Merkstus has been here, father; and he must have ten thousand francs by four o’clock.”
“Yes, yes, presently. True, I did sign a little note which is payable this month. I felt sure I should have found the Absolute. Good God! If I could only have a July sun the experiment would be successful.”
He grasped his head and sat down on an old cane chair; a few tears rolled from his eyes.
“Monsieur is quite right,” said Lemulquinier; “it is all the fault of that rascally sun which is too feeble,—the coward, the lazy thing!”