"Sometimes I just feel like he's better than me and I don't even get mad about it."
Ted was talking about Madorn. He did not intend his words as a pun, but it came out that way regardless.
Luckily, the good doctor was too tired to laugh.
"He is so competent, and yet - I am better. I know that. I can handle power. He cannot. And Eknie, who is arguably the most dangerous woman in the world, is fond of me and not Madorn. That has to mean something."
"Yet you shun her affections and deflect them away from yourself whenever it is possible," the dying man said.
He was a bit too observant for Ted's liking.
"Yes, I do. If I were to act on my animal instincts towards her, it would not be a mere carnal union, but a social, legal and emotional one as well. I dislike that thought intensely. I cannot even describe how disgusting the thought is, to be reduced to...what? A husband? A beast of burden?"
"A high cor like yourself? A beast of burden?"
