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  knew that he could kill him if he wanted to, for all of us had passed the physical limits and were living upon our mentalities, and Claud's being so much more virile than Deshay's, he was just that much more alive; yet Deshay was too stupid to discover this, although I think that he must have felt it in a way.

" 'Call your cur!' he repeated, but this time there was a change in his tone. It reminded me of the voice in which Claud had attempted to assert himself upon that first day aboard the schooner, but in Deshay's case this irresolution was on his own account; subjective, you see—not objective, like Claud's.

"I noticed this and began to laugh, and Deshay looked at me sheepishly. It was not a pleasant laugh; one feels sorry, Doctor, for a man who sacrifices his self-respect for the sake of some one else, but one laughs as I did at the man who does so for himself. This was the proportion between Claud and Deshay, and, although I found it amusing, I was [ 235 ]