malice combine to whisper a truthful answer. Starting from the axiom
that the precarious income which is produced by a want of success in
many branches of business cannot support luxury or purchase diamonds,
they arrive, _per saltum_, at the conclusion that there must be some
third party to provide the wife and the husband with means for their
existence. His name is soon fixed upon, and his motives readily
inferred. It can be none other than the husband's rich bachelor
friend, the same who accompanies the pair on all their expeditions,
who is a constant guest at their house, and is known to be both lavish
and determined in the prosecution of any object on which he has set
his heart. His heart, in this instance, is set upon his friend's wife,
and the obstacles in his way do not seem to be very formidable. The
case, indeed, is soon too manifest for any one but a born idiot to
feign ignorance of it. The husband is not a born idiot--he either sees
it plainly, or (it may be, after a struggle) he looks another way,
and resigns himself to the inevitable. For inevitable it is, if he is
to continue in that life of indolence and extravagant comfort which
habit has made a necessity for him. So he submits to the constant
companionship of a third party, and, in order to be truly tolerated
in his own household, becomes tolerant in a manner that is almost
sublime. He allows his friend to help him with large subventions of
money; he lets him cover his wife with costly jewels. He is content
to be supplanted without fuss, provided the supplanter never decreases
the stream of his benevolence; and the supplanter, having more wealth
than he knows what to do with, is quite content to secure his object
on such extremely easy terms. And thus the Tolerated Husband is
created.

It is curious to notice how cheerfully, to all outward appearance, he
accepts what other men would consider a disaster. Before the world