and admiration which I entertain for you can only be enhanced
thereby. In confirmation of this, permit me to offer you my hand."
He presented his hand to Gardiner, who, however, took it reluctantly
and but for a moment.

"Your highness is very noble, and at the same time a very subtle
diplomatist, for you only wish in an adroit and ingenious way to
give me to understand how I am to act should the queen choose you
for her spiritual director. But that she will do so, you know as
well as I. It is, therefore, for me only a humiliation which
etiquette imposes when she compels me to stand here and wait to see
whether I shall be chosen, or contemptuously thrust aside."

"Why will you look at matters in so unfriendly a light?" said
Cranmer, gently. "Wherefore will you consider it a mark of contempt,
if you are not chosen to an office to which, indeed, neither merit
nor worthiness can call us, but only the personal confidence of a
young woman?"

"Oh! you admit that I shall not be chosen?" cried Gardiner, with a
malicious smile.

"I have already told you that I am wholly uninformed as to the
queen's wish, and I think it is known that the Bishop of Canterbury
is wont to speak the truth."

"Certainly that is known, but it is known also that Catharine Parr
was a warm admirer of the Bishop of Canterbury; and now that she has
gained her end and become queen, she will make it her duty to show
her gratitude to him."