When Eyes Say More Than Words — The Blue Castle

Valancy feels intimately acquainted with Barney Snaith though they have spoken little; acquaintance began at first sight. One twilight in Abel's garden, gathering white narcissus for Cissy, she hears the Grey Slosson approach and for once Barney stops at the gate instead of driving past. Their eyes meet and a delicious weakness overtakes her, a new symptom unlike her familiar attacks. She notices violet eyes, mismatched eyebrows, thinness she wants to mother with food and buttons. He offers to run errands to Port Lawrence; she asks for salt codfish Abel wanted, thinking of Blue Castle knights on homely quests.

He calls her a brick for caring for Cissy, and conversation flows as easily as thinking aloud. He warns about Abel's ribald drunk stages; she says she is not afraid and admits she often wants to damn things too. He brings fruit to Cissy, candy to Valancy, her first box, almost too precious to eat. Evenings fill with his whistle, Abel's yarns of hoboing and the Yukon, and Cissy's certainty Barney could not be disgraceful. Valancy listens to adventures while learning nothing of his past, yet trusts him and feels sure he was never Cissy's lover.

She reads John Foster to Cissy; Barney dismisses it as piffle. Moonlit barrens, rabbits, and woodpecker stories complete a chapter where romance grows through errands, candor, and the relief of being herself without audience.