This in fact was what the place had just struck him
as so full of--the simplification of everything but the state of
suspense. That remained only by seeming to hang in the void
surrounding it. Even his original fear, if fear it as had been,
had lost itself in the desert. "I judge, however," he continued,
"that you see I'm not afraid now."
"What I see, as I make it out, is that you've achieved something
almost unprecedented in the way of getting used to danger. Living
with it so long and so closely you've lost your sense of it; you
know it's there, but you're indifferent, and you cease even, as of
old, to have to whistle in the dark. Considering what the danger
is," May Bartram wound up, "I'm bound to say I don't think your
attitude could well be surpassed."
John Marcher faintly smiled. "It's heroic?"
"Certainly--call it that."
It was what he would have liked indeed to call it. "I AM then a
man of courage?"
"That's what you were to show me."
He still, however, wondered. "But doesn't the man of courage know
what he's afraid of--or not afraid of? I don't know THAT, you see.
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