All the same, Collins plucked up her courage that evening and spoke to the nurse about Stephen. 'Her knees was all red and swollen, Mrs. Bingham. Did you ever know such a queer fish as she is? Praying about my knee, too. She's a caution! And now if she isn't trying to get one! Well, if that’s not real loving then I don’t know nothing.' And Collins began to laugh weakly.
After this Mrs. Bingham rose in her might, and the self-imposed torture was forcibly stopped. Collins, on her part, was ordered to lie, if Stephen continued to question. So Collins lied nobly: 'It's better, Miss Stephen, it must be your praying—you see Jesus heard you. I expect He was sorry to see your poor knees—I know as I was when I saw them!'
'Are you telling me the truth?' Stephen asked her, still doubting, still mindful of that first day of Love's young dream.
'Why, of course I'm telling you the truth, Miss Stephen.'
And with this Stephen had to be content.
3
Collins became more affectionate after the incident of the housemaid's knee; she could not but feel a new interest in the child whom she and the cook had now labelled as 'queer', and Stephen basked in much surreptitious petting, and her love for Collins grew daily.
It was spring, the season of gentle emotions, and Stephen, for the first time, became aware of spring. In a dumb, childish way she was conscious of its fragrance, and the house irked her sorely, and she longed for the meadows, and the hills that were white with thorntrees. Her active young body was for ever on the fidget, but her mind was bathed in a kind of soft haze, and this she could never quite put into words, though she tried to tell Collins about it. It was all part of Collins, yet somehow quite different—it had nothing to do with Collins' wide smile, nor her hands which were red, nor even her eyes which were blue, and very arresting. Yet all that was Collins, Stephen’s Collins, was also a part of these long, warm days, apart of the twilights that came in and lingered for hours after Stephen had been put to bed; a part too, could Stephen have only known it, of her own quickening childish perceptions. This spring, for the first time, she thrilled to the cuckoo, standing quite still to listen, with her head on one side; and the lure of that far-away call was destined to remain with her all her life.
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