The point is that Drucker is not a man of pious gestures.

As a pious gesture, however, he sent her heart to Tewkesbury.

Several tribesmen made pious gestures in agreement.

Carlina made a horrified, pious gesture.

"And when they do publish fiction," he said, "they tend to use it the way they use poetry: as filler or as a pious gesture."

"It is not for us to question the will of those on high," dogmatized the soothsayer, with a pious gesture toward the ceiling.

"If the gods will it," Jathelle agreed with a pious gesture.

Such pious gestures to the church were not unusual in mediaeval Germany, but they did come with conditions.

In a symbolic and pious gesture, the body of deposed King Richard II was interred in Westminster Abbey.

Se'hraqua folded his long, clawed fingers in a pious gesture.