There was a general silence.

Geoffrey turned and looked at Sir Patrick, as if Sir Patrick had
personally insulted him.

"Who is this anonymous man, who finds his way to his own ends, and
pities nobody and sticks at nothing?" he asked. "Give him a name!"

"I am quoting an example," said Sir Patrick. "I am not attacking a man."

"What right have you," cried Geoffrey--utterly forgetful, in the strange
exasperation that had seized on him, of the interest that he had in
controlling himself before Sir Patrick--"what right have you to pick out
an example of a rowing man who is an infernal scoundrel--when it's
quite as likely that a rowing man may be a good fellow: ay! and a better
fellow, if you come to that, than ever stood in your shoes!"

"If the one case is quite as likely to occur as the other (which I
readily admit)," answered Sir Patrick, "I have surely a right to choose
which case I please for illustration. (Wait, Mr. Delamayn! These are
the last words I have to say and I mean to say them.) I have taken
the example--not of a specially depraved man, as you erroneously
suppose--but of an average man, with his average share of the mean,
cruel, and dangerous qualities, which are part and parcel of unreformed
human nature--as your religion tells you, and as you may see for
yourself, if you choose to look at your untaught fellow-creatures any
where. I suppose that man to be tried by a temptation to wickedness, out
of the common; and I show, to the best of my ability, how completely the
moral and mental neglect of himself, which the present material tone