man is, as often as not, the attitude of a subordinate, and in itself an acknowledgment of inferiority; it has about it that tinge of servility which enjoins the turning of a blind eye to the faults of a superior.
I do not mean that the practice of condoning masculine slips is always prompted by an unthinking and servile compliance; on the contrary, it is very general amongst the increasing class of women who have learned to consider themselves as good as their masters—no less general, I should say, than amongst those who accept feminine inferiority to the male as a decree of nature. In their case the tenderness shown to masculine failings, the desire to save the masculine "face," is usually quite conscious—I myself have heard it frankly discussed, analyzed, and commented upon, time after time, by women whose occupations brought them into daily contact with men. And as the result of such frank discussion, analysis, and comment, I am inclined to believe that on the whole the motives which, in this particular class of women, induce extra consideration for the failings of a male fellow-worker are motives which, in man himself, would
