He put upon the table all the feathers he had extracted since his return to London, and they did make some little show, if less than it seemed to him.

That little adventure in the park; well, if it started wrongly, it but helped to show the change in him, for he had determinedly kept away from Mrs.
Jerry's house.

He had met her once since the book came out, and she had blushed exquisitely when referring to it, and said: "How you have suffered! I blame myself dreadfully." Yes, and there was an unoccupied sofa near by, and he had not sat down on it with her and continued the conversation.

Was not that a feather?
And there were other ladies, and, without going into particulars, they were several feathers between them.

How doggedly, to punish himself, he had stuck to the company of men, a sex that never interested him! "But all that is nothing.