The prince was an extremely handsome young man, as striking in one
way as Samson in another. Polo and pig-sticking had kept him lean,
and association with British officers had given him an air of being frankly
at his ease even when really very far from feeling it. He had the natural
Oriental gift of smothering excitement, added to a trick learned from
the West of aggressive self-restraint that is not satisfied with seeming
the opposite of what one is, but insists on extracting humor from the
situation and on calling attention to the humor.

"I shall always be grateful to you," he said, smiling into Tess's eyes with
his own wonderful brown ones but talking at the commissioner. "If I
had lost this letter I should have been at a loss indeed. If some one
else had found it, that might have been disastrous."

"But I did not find it for you," Tess objected.

Utirupa turned his back to the commissioner and answered in a low voice.

"Nevertheless, when I lose letters I shall come here first!"

He bowed to take his leave and showed the back of the envelope again
to Samson, with a quiet malice worthy of Torquemada. The commissioner
looked almost capable of snatching it.

"Mrs. Blaine," he said with a laugh after the prince had gone, "skill and
experience, I am afraid, are not much good without luck. Luck seems
to be a thing I lack. Now, if I had picked up that letter I've a notion that
the information in it would have saved me a year's work."