You know, in reading it, I don't actually think it's the references that add weight to it in this chapter -- though they don't help -- but rather the way Graveworthy occasionally acts, in particular the bit where he tells Clare that as a nineteen-year-old, this trip will just be a blip in her life when she's older. I'm working to make some corrections elsewhere to compensate, because some bits I can't get rid of, but you're not wrong about the intensity of it in this particular chapter.