Erlynne,
whom nobody knows. Her suspicions thus aroused, she searches her
husband's desk, discovers a private and locked bank-book, cuts it open,
and finds that one large cheque after another has been drawn in favour
of the lady in question. At this inopportune moment, Lord Windermere
appears with a request that Mrs. Erlynne shall be invited to their
reception that evening. Lady Windermere indignantly refuses, her husband
insists, and, finally, with his own hand, fills in an invitation-card
and sends it by messenger to Mrs. Erlynne. Here some playwrights might
have been content to finish the act. It is sufficiently evident that
Lady Windermere will not submit to the apparent insult, and that
something exciting may be looked for at the reception in the following
act. But Oscar Wilde was not content with this vague expectancy. He
first defined it, and then he underlined the definition, in a perfectly
natural and yet ingenious and skilful way. The day happens to be Lady
Windermere's birthday, and at the beginning of the act her husband has
given her a beautiful ostrich-feather fan.
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