He used to try to include Trevelyan in the atmosphere of approbation that surrounded himself, but Trevelyan obstinately refused even his advances.
Once, indeed, one evening, Stewart got him to join a game of cards. Trevelyan did more drinking than he did playing, and three hours later, Stewart carried him to his own quarters and nursed him through the long still night.
When Trevelyan awoke in the dawn of the early morning, he found Stewart still watching, and later as the wan grayness of the dawn turned to deepening gold, Stewart talked to him as an older man talks to a younger one. He spoke to him of self-respect and honor and of self-control. He spoke to him of Cary.
"Take a brace and redeem yourself with the mess and the men," he said, as he finished. "Where’s your grit and your hold on things? You don’t think you’re growing more worthy of her; do you?"
Trevelyan sat up, supporting himself by his rigid arms, on the palms of his hands. The light of the coming sunrise gave to his bronzed face a strange reddish hue.
"Think!" he exclaimed, "I wish to God I could stop thinking! Her face haunts and haunts and _haunts_ me! She says my love frightens her, and that it lies with me and what I make of myself, if her answer changes. I can’t change my love—it’s all of me; it’s the soul of me, and if it frightens her—!" Trevelyan leaned forward, "I can’t change myself! I can’t see her; I know I’ll never win her! How? I can’t tell you, but I know I never shall, and I don’t care what becomes of me or how soon I go to hell!"
The rigidity of his arms increased and he stared straight in front of him.
Stewart sprang up, his firm mouth quivering with passion.
"If a man had ever dared to tell me that you would talk so, I would have knocked him down. You’re not worthy to be born of such a father and it’s a blessing that your mother’s dead. You’re not worthy to have had my mother foster you ever since you were a little shaver. You’re not worthy of the worst woman that ever lived. You’ve lost your manhood. You can be cashiered from the army—and you can go to hell! You’re not worth saving!"
Young Stewart of the Engineers turned on his heel and swung out of the room as he would have swung, face forward, at the head of a line, leading into action.