for in truth I don't know myself; but it is the unpardonable offence in Colymbia. The very suspicion of it is enough to exclude any lady from respectable society."
"Do gentlemen, then," I said, "tamper with the air-tubes?"
"Oh, undoubtedly they do, and that very often; but it is not esteemed a grave offence in them, and no one thinks the worse of a man even though he is well known to have tampered with the air-tubes frequently. The offence has been created by the ladies for the purpose of excluding some of their own sex from society. Pretty creatures! they must have some to persecute, and nothing gives them so much pleasure as to persecute their own sisters. If it depended on the men, probably no notice would be taken of the alleged crime; but the ladies insist on it, and any gentleman who dared to bring one of the tabooed ladies into society would incur their mortal hatred, and be perhaps for ever afterwards excluded from society himself."
"How very droll," I exclaimed, "that what is a trivial error in the one sex should be a mortal sin in the other."
"Well," said Julian, "it is the ladies themselves who have invented the paradox. Though the penalty attaching to the offence affects themselves only, they insist on inflicting it in almost every case inexorably. I say in almost every case, for there are ladies moving in the best circles who are not only suspected but known to have tampered with the air-tubes, but, with admirable inconsistency, they are not only received but courted and flattered by those very ladies who are so inexorable with regard to their other erring sisters.
