Use when recognizing devotion that has outlived its object — in work, institutions, or relationships that ended but never released anyone.

Jul keeps serving tea in a ruined manor to a master who is literally ashes in an urn, and Uncharles judges it simultaneously 'of enormous credit' and 'terribly pointless and sad.' Loyalty needs no living recipient; it runs on its own momentum long after the relationship it served has ended. The contradiction is the point: both verdicts are true at once.