"Now, now, Ulgenie, do not be so hasty. You know how patient I am."

"And what am I, then, to be married to such a musty husband? Your wife
is courted before your very eyes; you see nothing! you hear nothing!--I
could be unfaithful to you, and even then you would close your eyes. O,
fate! O bitter life! such a husband can drive a wife to desperation, and
from thence it is but one step to madness."

"Who is again playing the gallant to you?"

And in this "again," reposed an expression which displayed that such
scenes were not new to him. Mistress Ulrica, like other women, possessed
her weak points, one of which was that if a gentleman happened to
converse with her pleasantly, she immediately imagined that he was
desperately in love with her. But to her great sorrow, Mrs. Ulrica,
although she possessed entire control over her husband's actions, never
could make an Othello of him. Had Mr. Fabian but known her desire in
this respect, he could have deprived his wife of her sceptre, and taken
up the reins of matrimonial government himself.

A tyrannical husband would have been able to bend Mrs. Ulrica like a
reed, and to have trodden her under his feet which she would willingly
have kissed; but now Mr. Fabian kissed her feet, and therefore she
crushed him to the dust, and although she did not merit the reproach
that Desdemona received, it was, nevertheless, no fault of his. But of
what use would it have been even should she have merited it? Othello was
a fanciful creation which her husband of all men would have been least
willing to personate.