Repton startled them both nearly out of their skins. “Divisions?” he shrieked, jumping up. “Go down and maunder past those green boxes in a great stifling pack for nothing at all? Not if I know it! Why I can guess you the majority from here. And if there wasn’t any majority I should blasted well like to know the difference it would make! Divisions! Oh chase me!” And he snorted and sat down again.
Withers did not know whether to stay or to go, but before he could reply Charles Repton in the most ordinary of tones went on: “I can’t understand a man like you, Withers, putting up with it. You’re rich, you’re a gentleman born, which I’m not; you’d be just as big a man in Buckinghamshire, especially nowadays when the county’s crawling with Jews, if you were out of the House. You’d be infinitely freer. You know perfectly well the country’ll stagger along without the silly tom-fool business or with it, and that neither it nor anything else can prevent the smash. Why don’t you go and live your life of a squire like a sensible chap? And make one prayer that you may die before the whole bag of tricks comes to an end?”
“Come along, Charles,” said Withers smoothly, “do come along.”
“Not I!” said Repton, “I’m going to bed. I’m tired, and my head hurts me!” And he went out like a boor.
“Lady Repton,” said Withers very gently when he had gone, “what has Charles got to do to-morrow?”
“He never tells me,” said the wretched lady. “I suppose he will go into the City as usual.”
“It’s very unwise,” said Withers, “and yet I don’t know after all. It might help him to be in harness, and you’ll have him out of the house while you’re making your plans. I’ll do what I can, Lady Repton, I’ll do what I can. Isn’t to-morrow the meeting of the Van Diemens Company?”
“I can’t tell,” said Lady Repton despairingly. She was impatient to be seeing to her husband. She had grown terrified during the last few hours when he was out of her sight.
“Yes, it is,” said Withers. “Oh that’ll be all right. It’ll do him all the good in the world: I’m sure it will. Good-night.”
He came back again. He remembered something: “Of course,” he said a little awkwardly, “ I don’t know anything about these things, but I read in the paper that he was down to speak at the big Wycliffite meeting. Don’t let him go there, Lady Repton, until you’re quite certain, will you?”