"Wogan makes mistakes like another, but somehow gets the better of them in the end. There was a word he said to me when he begged for my permission. I told him his plan was a mere dream. He answered he would dream it true; he will."
"You should have waked him. You were the master, he the servant. You were the King."
"And when can the King do what he wills instead [pg 140] of what he must? Maria, if you and I had met before I sent Charles Wogan to search out a wife for me—"
Maria Vittoria knelt up. She drew herself away.
"He chose her as your wife?"
"If only I had had time to summon him back!"
"He chose her—Charles Wogan. How I hate him!"
"I sent him to make the choice."
"And he might have gone no step beyond Bologna. There was I not a mile distant ready to his hand! But I was too mean, too despicable—"
"Maria, hush!" And the troubled voice in which he spoke rang with so much pain that she was at once contrite with remorse.