“Tell me the total gains, my love,” said Eve--“the gross gains.” Cecil consulted a pocket-book. “A trifle,” he answered. “Between thirty-eight and forty thousand pounds.” “My dear Cecil,” the girl said, “call it forty thousand--a million francs--and give me a cheque. Do you mind?” “I shall be charmed, my darling.” “And when we get to London,” Eve finished, “I will hand it over to the hospitals anonymously.” He paused, gazed at her, and kissed her. Then Kitty Sartorius entered, a marvellous vision, with Belmont in her wake. Kitty glanced hesitatingly at the massive and good-humoured Lionel. “The fact is----” said Kitty, and paused. “We are engaged,” said Lionel. “You aren’t surprised?” “Our warmest congratulations!” Cecil observed. “No. We can’t truthfully say that we are staggered. It is in the secret nature of things that a leading lady must marry her manager--a universal law that may not be transgressed.” “Moreover,” said Eve later, in Cecil’s private ear, as they were separating for the night, “we might have guessed much earlier. Theatrical managers don’t go scattering five-hundred-pound bracelets all over the place merely for business reasons.” “But he only scattered one, my dear,” Cecil murmured. “Yes, well. That’s what I mean.” MR. PENFOUND’S TWO BURGLARS. THE STORY OF HIS WALK WITH THEM. The chain of circumstances leading to the sudden and unexpected return of Mr. and Mrs. Penfound from their Continental holiday was in itself curious and even remarkable, but it has nothing to do with the present narrative, which begins with the actual arrival of Mr. and Mrs. Penfound before the portal of their suburban residence, No. 7, Munster Gardens, at a quarter before midnight on the 30th of August. It was a detached house with a spacious triangular garden at the back; it had an air of comfort, of sobriety, of good form, of success; one divined by looking at it that the rent ran to about £80, and that the tenant was not a man who had to save up for quarter days. It was a credit to the street, which upon the whole, with its noble trees and its pretty curve, is distinctly the best street in Fulham. And, in fact, No. 7 in every way justified the innocent pride of the Penfounds. “I can feel cobwebs all over me,” said Mrs. Penfound, crossly, as they entered the porch and Mr. Penfound took out his latchkey. She was hungry, hot, and tired, and she exhibited a certain pettishness--a pettishness which Mr. Penfound, whenever it occurred, found a particular pleasure in soothing. Mr. Penfound himself was seldom ruffled. Most men would have been preoccupied with the discomforts of the arrival, but not George Penfound. Mr. Penfound was not, and had never been, of those who go daily into the city by a particular train, and think the world is coming to an end if the newsagent fails to put the newspaper on the doorstep before 8 a.m.