They stayed at the Grand Hotel--for privacy few places can compete with a large hotel--and directly they stayed the annoyances began again. It was indeed most singular. On the very morning after their arrival a notice was posted in the _salle de lecture_ that the night before a lady had lost her fan--something historical in fans, and quite unique. She had been seated outside the reading-room--the Burgoynes must have been arriving at that very moment--preparatory to going to the opera. She laid this wonderful fan on a chair beside her, it was only for an instant, yet when she turned it was gone. The administration charitably suggested--in their notice--that someone of their lady guests had mistaken it for her own. That same evening a really remarkable tale was whispered about the place. A certain lady and gentleman--not our pair, but another--happened to be honeymooning in the hotel. Monsieur had left Madame asleep in bed. When she got up and began to dress, she discovered that the larger and more valuable portion of the jewellery which had been given her as wedding presents, and which she, perhaps foolishly, had brought abroad, had gone--apparently vanished into air. The curious part of the tale was this. She had dreamed that she saw a woman--unmistakably a lady--trying on this identical jewellery before the looking-glass. Query, was it a dream? Or had she, lying in bed, in a half somnolent condition, been the unconscious witness of an actual occurrence? "Upon my word," declared Mr. Burgoyne to his wife, "If the thing weren't actually impossible, I should be inclined to believe that we were the victims of some elaborate practical joke; that people were in a conspiracy to make us believe that ill luck dogged our steps!" Mrs. Burgoyne smiled. She was putting on her bonnet before the glass. They were preparing to sally out for a quiet dinner on the boulevard. "You silly Charlie! What queer ideas you get in your head. What does it matter to us if foolish people lose their things? We have not a mission to make folks wiser, or, what amounts to the same thing, to compel them to keep valuable things in secure places." The lady, who had finished her performance at the glass, came and put her hands upon her lord's two shoulders, "My dear child, don't look so black? I shall be much better prepared to discuss that, or any subject, when--we have dined." The lady made a little _moue_ and kissed him on the lips. Then they went downstairs. But when they had got so far upon their road, the gentleman discovered that he had brought no money in his pockets. Leaving his wife in the _salle de lecture_, he returned to his bedroom to supply the omission.