o, Philip: my regret is not to have stood out for terms that must
have been refused to me; I wish I had asked for the 'impossible.' I
tried to make a laughing matter of it when I began, but I cannot--I
cannot. I have got the feeling that I have been selling my birthright."

"And you regret that the mess of pottage has not been bigger."

"There's the impossibility in making a friend of an Englishman! It is
the sordid side of everything he will insist on turning uppermost. Had
I told a Frenchman what I have told you, he would have lent me his whole
heart in sympathy."

"To be sure he would. He would have accepted all that stupid
sentimentality about your grandmother as refined feeling, and you 'd
have been blubbering over each other this half-hour."

"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 b