An Ideal Husband

The octagon room at Sir Robert Chiltern’s house in Grosvenor Square. [The room is brilliantly lighted and full of guests. At the top of the staircase stands Lady Chiltern, a woman of grave
Greek beauty, about twenty-seven years of age.

She receives the guests as they come up. Over the well of the staircase hangs a great chandelier with wax lights, which illumine a large eighteenth century French tapestry representing the Triumph of Love, from a design by Boucherthat is stretched on the staircase wall.

On the right is the entrance to the music-room. The sound of a string quartette is faintly heard. The entrance on the left leads to other receptionrooms. Mrs. Marchmonth and Lady Basildon, two very pretty women, are seated together on a Louis Seize sofa. They are types of exquisite fragility. Their affectation of manner has a delicate charm. Watteau would have loved to paint them.]