On the third morning Reddin came. Hazel had gone to the shop, and, coming back, she had lingered a little to watch with a sense of old comradeship the swallows wheeling in hundreds about the quarry cliffs. Their breasts were dazzling in the clear hot air. They had no thought for her, being so filled with a rage of joy, dashing up and down the smooth white sides of the quarry, multiplied by their blue shadows. They would nestle in crevices, like bits of thistledown caught in a grass-tuft, and would there sun themselves and chirrup. So many hundreds were there, and their shadows so multiplied them, that they seemed less like birds than like some dream of a bird heaven—essential birdhood. They were so quick with life, so warm, with their red-splashed breasts and blue flashing bodies; they wove such a tireless, mazy pattern, like bobbins weaving invisible lace, that they put winter far off. They comforted Hazel inexpressibly. Yet to-morrow they would, in all likelihood, be gone, not even a shadow left. Hazel wished she could catch them as they swept by, their shining breasts brushing the grasses. She knew they were sacred birds, 'birds with forkit tails and fire on 'em.' If sacredness is in proportion to vitality and joy, Hazel and the swallow tribe should be red-letter saints.
It was while she was away that Reddin knocked at the house door, and Edward answered the knock. Something in his look made Reddin speak fast. He had triumphed at their last encounter through muscle. Edward triumphed in this through despair.
'I felt I ought to come, Marston. As things are, the straight thing is for me to marry her—if you'll divorce her.'
He looked at Edward questioningly, but Edward stared beyond him with a strange expression of utter nausea, hopeless loss, and loathing of all created things. Reddin went on:
'Her place is with me. It's my duty to look after her now, as it's my child she's going to have.'
He could not resist this jibe of the virile to the non-virile. Besides, if he could make Marston angry, perhaps he would fight again, and fighting was so much better than this uncomfortable silence.
'I should naturally pay all expenses and maintenance wherever she was;
I never mind paying for my pleasures.'
Edward's eyes smouldered, but he said nothing.
'Of course, she can't expect either of us to see to her in her position' (Edward clenched his hands), 'but I intend to do the decent thing. I'm never hard on a woman in that state; some fellows would be; but I've got a memory, hang it, and I'm grateful for favours received.'
Why he should be at his very worst for Edward's benefit was not apparent, except that complete silence acts on the nerves, and nervousness brings out the real man.