“I am not trying to mystify you,” he assured me. “But the truth is so hard to believe sometimes that in the present case I hesitate to divulge it. Did you ever meet Tcheriapin?”
This abrupt change of topic somewhat startled me, but nevertheless:
“I once heard him play,” I replied. “Why do you ask the question?”
“For this reason: Tcheriapin possessed the only other example of this art which so far as I am aware ever left the laboratory of the inventor. He occasionally wore it in his buttonhole.”
“It is then a manufactured product of some sort?”
“As I have said, in a sense it is; but”—he drew the tiny exquisite ornament from his pocket again and held it up before me—“it is a natural bloom.”
“What!”
“It is a natural bloom,” replied my acquaintance, fixing his penetrating gaze upon me. “By a perfectly simple process invented by the cleverest chemist of his age it had been reduced to this gem-like state while retaining unimpaired every one of its natural beauties, every shade of its natural colour. You are incredulous?”
“On the contrary,” I replied, “having examined it through a magnifying glass I had already assured myself that no human hand had fashioned it. You arouse my curiosity intensely. Such a process, with its endless possibilities, should be worth a fortune to the inventor.”
The stranger nodded grimly and again concealed the rose in his pocket.