Verity was generally unimpressed with men. Even the ones she was most fond of, dear Francis and Ross, often displayed the acuity of a milch cow, overlooking what was plainest and both were so determined that they were ever and always right that she thought they'd march straight off the cliff into the sea some days. Francis gambled, he spent not only money but invaluable time with that odious George Warleggan, and he was so terrified that Ross's return would take Elizabeth from him that he forgot all the cossetting his betrothed had become accustomed to, became unpredictably cold and formal and expected Elizabeth to make up any difference. Verity saw the way Elizabeth's eyes followed each man and knew how she must weigh her heart against her future, a calculation a man never made.
Ross—whose return had been so unexpected and the cause for such excitement, who'd once roamed the fields and shores like a dark, young prince with his favorite courtier Francis never far behind, was no better. In fact, she rather thought he was worse, for he had more to lose and still did little to ensure his good fortune, his pocketbook or his soul's happy accommodation. He'd never been as dreamy as Francis, was a decisive man of action after being a youth known for his daring and devilment, and now he battered himself against Wheal Leisure, trying to exchange his bitterness over Elizabeth's choice with a vein of copper with every strike of the pick. Now, he risked even Demelza's affections, though Verity thought the former maid was the wisest of them all, how she turned to work and the music she could make with her voice alone when Ross couldn't be bothered with her. Demelza lifted eager blue eyes to Ross again and again and he only looked for Chynoweth grey, only looking for what was missing, as if he could find the air between the clouds.
Verity wished she couldn't understand why they were all so set against Andrew Blamey, another man just as flawed as the ones she knew but at least one who owned his faults, on his knees if he had to, but she understand, because she knew them better than they did themselves. She knew herself as she knew Demelza and Elizabeth, knew what any woman did who'd a whit of sense, what it cost to speak and to keep silent, what it cost to sing.