The language you have used leaves me no alternative but to meet your statement of what you suppose me to have said by my statement of what I really did say.

It is not my fault if the discussion in the garden is revived before another audience in this room--it is yours." He looked as he spoke to Arnold and Blanche, and from them to the surgeon standing at the window.
The surgeon had found an occupation for himself which completely isolated him among the rest of the guests.

Keeping his own face in shadow, he was studying Geoffrey's face, in the full flood of light that fell on it, with a steady attention which must have been generally remarked, if all eyes had not been turned toward Sir Patrick at the time.
It was not an easy face to investigate at that moment.
While Sir Patrick had been speaking Geoffrey had seated himself near the window, doggedly impenetrable to the reproof of which he was the object.
In his impatience to consult the one authority competent to decide the question of Arnold's position toward Anne, he had sided with Sir Patrick, as a means of ridding himself of the unwelcome presence of his friends--and he had defeated his own purpose, thanks to his own brutish incapability of bridling himself in the pursuit of it.

Whether he was now discouraged under these circumstances, or whether he was simply resigned to bide his time till his time came, it was impossible, judging by outward appearances, to say.

With a heavy dropping at the corners of his mouth, with a stolid indifference staring dull in his eyes, there he sat, a man forearmed, in his own obstinate neutrality, against all temptation to engage in the conflict of opinions that was to come.
Sir Patrick took up the newspaper which he had brought in from the garden, and looked once more to see if the surgeon was attending to him.
No! The surgeon's attention was absorbed in his own subject.