But then, as he hastened to add--though whether in extenuation of his own, or of his father's, shortcomings remained open to question--wasn't the contrast between the slightly pompous, slightly bow-windowed, provincial, Tory cleric and this spare, inscrutable soldier and ruler, glaring likewise?
To demand that the one should either experience or inspire the same emotions as the other was palpably absurd! Hence (comfortable conclusion!) neither he, Tom, nor the Archdeacon was really to blame .-- Only, as he further argued, once the absurdity of that same demand admitted, were you not free to talk of exaggeration, or of the "grand manner," as you chose?
Were not the terms interchangeable, if you kept an open mind?
His personal acquaintance with the "grand manner" in respect of the affections, with heroical love, amounted, save in literature, to practically nothing; yet instinctively he applied those high sounding phrases to the attachment existing between Damaris and her father.

Both as discovery and, in some sort, as challenge to his own preconceived ideas and methods this gave him food for serious thought.
He made no attempt at comment or answer; but sat silent beside the girl, bare-headed in the soft wind and sunlight, between the flowing river and tranquil sea.
The "grand manner"-- that was how, naturally, without posing or bombast, these two persons envisaged life for good or evil--for this last, too, might be possible!--shaped their purposes and conduct.

Sir Charles, he knew, had played for big stakes.

Damaris, he felt intuitively, young though she was, played and would play for them likewise.

He looked at her with awakened speculation, awakened curiosity.