Her smile was entrancing. The
charm of her was always not so much in what she said, as in the way she
said it--in the way she gave her hand, in the way she looked at one, in
the varying inflection of her voice, in her sweetness, her calm, her
dignity, and, under all these attributes, always her heart. And never
had she shown them all more vividly than now as she put her hand into
Derby's.

Then they all four sat down--the princess in a big chair and her husband
on the arm of it leaning half back of her. And nothing could stop his
talk about his friend the American, and the effect upon the members of
the committee when the picture was produced and Derby presented his
chain of evidence. They had been more than polite and courteous to the
prince, that was true, but they _had_ detained him; him, a
Sansevero!--and in the telling he again grew indignant. And yet it had
been a terrible chain of evidence, and he had not seen how it was to be
broken.

Then he branched off from his own affair, and went into an account of
all that he had just heard of the experience of Derby himself with
Calluci; and the adventure, in spite of Derby's protests, certainly lost
nothing in the recital. The princess and Nina had not heard of this, and
Nina sat and gazed at the hero in mute rapture. In fact, the only one
whose feelings were at all uncertain was Derby. Not but that it was
pleasant to hear such praise of himself but it is very hard to be a hero
unless one has no sense of humor at all. When the prince had used up
half the adjectives of praise and admiration in the Italian language,
and was about to begin on the other half, Derby succeeded in
interrupting.

"By the way, princess," he said, "I have something I meant to show you
this morning, but the other matter put it out of my mind." He drew a
paper out of his pocket and handed it to her. She opened it, the prince
looking over her shoulder. It was a sheet of foolscap covered with fine
writing and many figures in groups and in columns.

"But what does it mean?" she asked.

"It is our first balance sheet at the mines. These are the tons of ore
taken out," he answered, pointing to various totals, "this is the
present market price paid for the first shipment, and this is the amount
we are turning out now per day. At the same rate, the year's payment, at
a conservative estimate, will be that amount. At all events I shall send
you a check the first of August for fifty thousand _lire_."