If he dare have told Heather then—if he only dare have left that miserable office of his, where he kept poring over bills and cursing impatient creditors—it would have been a comfort to the man; but there had arisen a coolness between him and Heather of late. She was either jealous or exacting—perhaps both; she objected, not by words, which he might have combated, but by manner to his excessive intimacy with Mrs. Croft. And it was so perfectly ridiculous! jealousy in the matter was so utterly uncalled for! There was nothing wrong in his friendship for Mrs. Croft—nothing; therefore ill-humour, even dissatisfaction, was quite unreasonable. If he had given his wife cause for anger, Arthur could have understood her antagonism—but without cause? Just as though a flirtation were not fifty times harder to endure patiently than a _liaison_; as though the external caution which the latter demands were not preferable to the flaunting boldness of that virtue which fearlessly laughs aloud while looking down into the very pit of Vice. Sin does not, as a rule, voluntarily walk on the same pavement with injured wives, staring them out of countenance; sin does not come to a woman’s house, dressed out in the extreme of the fashion, trailing its silks and satins over carpets which are trodden by the feet of sorrowful and neglected women. There is something to be urged against sin! Injured husbands and wives have decidedly the best of the argument when once the seventh commandment is broken and strange idols occupy the shrines which once were consecrated to the household deities; but against flirtation conjugal jealousy is powerless: it can suspect all things, and confirm none; it has no cause to bring openly, even into the domestic court; it suffers and yet has no disease; it feels the smart, yet can lay its hand on no open wound. Flirtation is like a shadow: it follows you about, and still no man can lay a hand upon it; it may dog your footsteps and disturb your peace, and yet, if complaint be made of it, you are assured it is only a fancy which is distressing you. It is the person who complains in this case who is in fault, not the person who offends; it is the exacting wife or jealous husband, not the foolish man, or forgetful woman, who is to blame if domestic unhappiness accrue from an over-appreciation of Mr. This, or Mrs. That. What folly to strive to keep a husband eternally at home! What absurdity to suppose a wife is never to speak civilly to a male acquaintance! so the defence runs, while it is not thought necessary even to keep the cause of offence discreetly in the background. The whole affair is so moral, so strictly proper, that it is never supposed possible dear John can grow weary of seeing Alonzo, nor Mary become tired of hearing Imogen’s praises sounded.