He perceived that he had permitted his old enmity for the house of Tressilian, swollen by a sense of injury lately suffered in the matter of the licence to build at Smithick, to warp his judgment and to persuade him that Sir Oliver was all he had dubbed him.
He realized that jealousy, too, had taken a hand in the matter.

Sir Oliver's exploits upon the seas had brought him wealth, and with this wealth he was building up once more the Tressilian sway in those parts, which Ralph Tressilian had so outrageously diminished, so that he threatened to eclipse the importance of the Killigrews of Arwenack.
Nevertheless, in the hour of reaction he did not go so far as to admit that Sir Oliver Tressilian was a fit mate for Rosamund Godolphin.

She and her brother had been placed in his care by their late father, and he had nobly discharged his tutelage until such time as Peter had come to full age.

His affection for Rosamund was tender as that of a lover, but tempered by a feeling entirely paternal.

He went very near to worshipping her, and when all was said, when he had cleared his mind of all dishonest bias, he still found overmuch to dislike in Oliver Tressilian, and the notion of his becoming Rosamund's husband was repellent.
First of all there was that bad Tressilian blood--notoriously bad, and never more flagrantly displayed than in the case of the late Ralph Tressilian.