After Cesario has left, Olivia remembers Cesario's proud declaration: "I am a gentleman." Olivia, in fact, savors remembering Cesario's entire conversation; she is aware that she is falling in love with the "boy," and she wonders if it is possible that Orsino is pretending to be Cesario. Her desire to find out and her desire to see the young "boy" again cause her to perpetrate a ruse to bring the youth back to her. We know that this is a trick; Cesario left no ring behind, but this is the safest way that Olivia can try to persuade the youth to return.
At the end of Act I, Olivia is in a delicious state of incipient love after having rejected the duke's offer of love. She accepts her fate, whatever it may be, and exits, thinking of young Cesario in the warmest terms. The situation is now extremely complicated: Olivia loves a girl (Viola) masquerading as a boy (Cesario), while Duke Orsino loves Olivia, who rejects him, and he is in turn loved by a girl (Viola) who, to the duke, is merely a young man whose company he delights in.
