Hadrian Himself had a very tender and romantic feeling of attachment towards the Stewarts: but He responded, "Our office is not to stir up strife. We Englishmen happen to have made an ideal of Elizabeth. With that delightful capability for making our own ideals and maintaining them in the teeth of realities, we have chosen to forget the fact that no sovereign of ordinary intelligence could have helped being gilded by the really abnormal galaxy of talent which illumined the age of Elizabeth. It was those gigantic geniuses who made the glory of England then. England happened to be personified by Elizabeth. Therefore, in English eyes, Elizabeth was great and glorious and all the rest. No one" (he turned to Semphill) "can quarrel with your statement of blind and naked fact; and no one, who is right-minded, will. But, We desire to reconcile, not to exasperate, though We never will refuse to exasperate upon an apt occasion. Therefore We will not assert now that which need not be asserted. Be content that We raise your lovely martyred queen to the honours of the altars of your country. Ask Almighty God to look upon your land with favour for His Son's sake, and for the sake of her who in the Strength of that Son was faithful unto death. Call upon Mary in Heaven to add her prayers to those which ye offer to God on earth. Precious in the sight of The Lord.--If it be His Will to confirm with signs and wonders these your invocations----" Their Eminencies gazed at the Pope with ecstasy. That He, whom they had known before, not always agreeably, that He--"Oh, really," said Semphill to Carvale as they left the Presence, "I don't know whether I'm sleeping or waking." And Hadrian, alone, rolled a cigarette, saying to Another than Himself, "Is that what You wish me to do in this case?"