Marius—or the spirit that looks like Marius—laughs.

It isn't a cruel laugh, though he teeters on that edge always, a shifting mood away from something unspeakable; his tone is rueful when he says, with the absolute certainty of someone to whom reality is merely another thing to shape with his hands, “I'm the only person—” debatable definition, “—here who might.”

They may not be defining the word respect quite the same way.