"Better to be a rational creature," he added then, after ringing a small bell on the table, "and accept your natural destiny. But you are lost, Monsieur Charles, I see."
"This property and France are lost to me," said the nephew, sadly; "I renounce them."
"Are they both yours to renounce? France may be, but is the property? It is scarcely worth mentioning; but, is it yet?"
"I had no intention, in the words I used, to claim it yet. If it passed to me from you, to-morrow--"
"Which I have the vanity to hope is not probable."
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"--or twenty years hence--"
"You do me too much honour," said the Marquis; "still, I prefer that supposition."
"--I would abandon it, and live otherwise and elsewhere. It is little to relinquish. What is it but a wilderness of misery and ruin!"
"Hah!" said the Marquis, glancing round the luxurious room.
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