“If you only knew the sublime project I had. I dare not tell you of it in your miserable spirit of depreciating all that is high in feeling and noble in aspiration. You would ridicule it. Yes, mon cher, you would have seen nothing in my plan, save what you could turn into absurdity.”
“Let me hear it. I promise you to receive the information with the most distinguished consideration.”
“You could not. You could not elevate your mind even to comprehend my motives. What would you have said, if I had gone to this Mr. Bramleigh, and said, Cousin—”
“He is not your cousin, to begin with.”
“No matter; one calls every undefined relation cousin. Cousin, I would have said, this house that you live in, these horses that you drive, this plate that you dine off, these spreading lawns and shady woods that lie around, are mine; I am their lawful owner; I am the true heir to them; and you are nothing—nobody—the son of an illegitimate—”
“I 'd say he 'd have pitched you out of the window.”
“Wait a while; not so fast. Nevertheless, I would have said, Yours is the prescription and the habit. These things have pertained to you since your birth: they are part of you, and you of them. You cannot live without them, because you know no other life than where they enter and mingle; while I, poor and an adventurer, have never tasted luxury, nor had any experiences but of trouble and difficulty. Let us each keep the station to which habit and time have accustomed him. Do you live, as you have ever lived, grand seigneur as you are—rich, honored, and regarded. I will never dispute your possession nor assail your right. I only ask that you accept me as your relation—a cousin, who has been long absent in remote lands; a traveller, an 'eccentric,' who likes a life of savagery and adventure, and who has come back, after years of exile, to see his family and be with his own. Imagine yourself for an instant to be Bramleigh, and what you would have said to this? Had I simply asked to be one of them, to call them by their Christian names, to be presented to their friends as Cousin Anatole—I ask you now—seriously, what you would have replied to such a noble appeal?”
“I don't know exactly what I should have said, but I think I can tell you what I would have done.”
“Well, out with it.”
“I 'd have sent for the police, and handed you over to the authorities for either a rogue or a madman.”