ould set the
matter right, how quickly it would mend!"

"Alas! poor rogue," said Cassio, "I really think she loves me," and like
the talkative coxcomb he was, Cassio was led on to boast of Bianca's
fondness for him, while Othello imagined, with choked rage, that he
prattled of Desdemona, and thought, "I see your nose, Cassio, but not
the dog I shall throw it to."

Othello was still spying when Bianca entered, boiling over with the idea
that Cassio, whom she considered her property, had asked her to copy the
embroidery on the handkerchief of a new sweetheart. She tossed him the
handkerchief with scornful words, and Cassio departed with her.

Othello had seen Bianca, who was in station lower, in beauty and speech
inferior far, to Desdemona and he began in spite of himself to praise
his wife to the villain before him. He praised her skill with the
needle, her voice that could "sing the savageness out of a bear," her
wit, her sweetness, the fairness of her skin. Every time he praised
her Iago said something that made him remember his anger and utter it
foully, and yet he must needs praise her, and say, "The pity of it,
Iago! O Iago, the pity of it, Iago!"

There was never in all Iago's villainy one moment of wavering. If there
had been he might have wavered then.

"Strangle her," he said; and "Good, good!" said his miserable dupe.

The pair were still talking murder when Desdemona appeared with a
relative of Desdemona's father, called Lodovico, who bore a letter
for Othello from the Duke of Venice. The letter recalled Othello from
Cyprus, and gave the governorship to Cassio.

Luckless Desdemona seized this unhappy moment to urge once more the suit
of Cassio.

"Fire and brimstone!" shouted Othello.

"It may be the letter agitates him," explained Lodovico to Desdemona,
and he told her what it contained.

"I am glad," said Desdemona. It was the first bitter speech that
Othello's unkindness had wrung out of her.

"I am glad to see you lose your temper," said Othello.

"Why, sweet Othello?" she asked, sarcastically; and Othello slapped her
face.

Now was the time for Desdemona to have saved her life by separation, but
she knew not her peril--only that her love was wounded to the core. "I
have not deserved this," she said, and the tears rolled slowly down her
face.

Lodovico was shocked and disgusted. "My lord," he said, "this would not
be believed in Venice. Make her amends;" but, like a madman talking in
his