“Oh, naturally, when I said I’d decided, I meant as regards myself. I’m here to get your views. But, even if you’re against me, Uncle, that won’t stop me from going on. I mean there may be others who aren’t romantic about Hepplestall’s. I may find others who’ll pool their shares with mine in favor of a sale.”
William inclined to tell him to go and try. He didn’t think it likely that there would be any others, but if there were, let them join with Rupert and let William be able to say that his hand was forced. It would be a comforting solution.
“You’re hoping it, Uncle. I’m perfectly aware you want to sell. Why did you write to me at all if you didn’t want to sell?”
“Is that fair, Rupert? You would have been the first to blame me if I had not told you of this.”
“I should never have known anything about it. I know nothing of lots of important things you decide.”
“And doesn’t that seem a shameful thing for your father’s son to have to say, Rupert? Suppose I sent you that letter just to make you see what sort of important things we had to decide in your absence. To arouse your sense of responsibility.”
“That cock won’t fight, Uncle. You could decide other things very well without me. You could decide this, too, if the decision were a negative. But the decision you hoped for was an affirmative and so you wrote to me. Are you going to deny that you hoped I’d want to sell?”
“You’re... you’re very headstrong, Rupert.”
“I’ve come here to get down to facts. And the flat fact is that both you and I want to sell. You want more pleasure in life than being Head of Hepplestall’s allows you. You want to get out and I don’t mean to get in. We both know that from the point of view of those old Johnnies on the wall”—William shuddered at his catastrophic levity—“it’s a crime to sell Hepplestall’s. But I’m not a Chinaman and I won’t worship my ancestors. I’ve my own view of the sort of life I mean to live. And we both know that the whole of the rest of the Board may be against us and that some of them virulently will. Very well, then we don’t tell the Board before it’s necessary. We go into the question of price, and we quote the figure to these accountants. We see what reply we draw. As to the price, that’s your affair.”
“Well,” confessed William, “tentatively, purely as a matter of curiosity, I have gone into that.”