'Two glasses?' he remarked. 'It seems you came prepared for the conversation.'
Scrope raised his eyes quickly to Wogan's face, and dropped them again to the glasses.
'One might easily have been broken,' he explained.
They leaned back in the chaise, each with a glass in his hand.
'It is to your taste, I hope,' said Scrope courteously.
Wogan smacked his lips in contentment.
'Lord Oxford has no better in his cellars.'
'I may agree without boastfulness. It is indeed Florence of a rare vintage, which I was at some pains to procure.' He laughed with a spice of savagery and resumed the consideration of Wogan's verses.
'You seem to me to have missed the opportunity afforded by your gale of wind. A true poet would surely have made great play with the lady's petticoats.'
'Smilinda had none,' again replied Wogan in triumph, and he emptied his glass.