Good-bye.

PICKERING. Good-bye [They shake hands].

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to Mrs. Higgins] You mustn't mind Clara.
[Pickering, catching from her lowered tone that this is not meant for
him to hear, discreetly joins Higgins at the window]. We're so poor!
and she gets so few parties, poor child! She doesn't quite know. [Mrs.
Higgins, seeing that her eyes are moist, takes her hand sympathetically
and goes with her to the door]. But the boy is nice. Don't you think so?

MRS. HIGGINS. Oh, quite nice. I shall always be delighted to see him.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL. Thank you, dear. Good-bye. [She goes out].

HIGGINS [eagerly] Well? Is Eliza presentable [he swoops on his mother
and drags her to the ottoman, where she sits down in Eliza's place with
her son on her left]?

Pickering returns to his chair on her right.

MRS. HIGGINS. You silly boy, of course she's not presentable. She's a
triumph of your art and of her dressmaker's; but if you suppose for a
moment that she doesn't give herself away in every sentence she utters,
you must be perfectly cracked about her.

PICKERING. But don't you think something might be done? I mean
something to eliminate the sanguinary element from her conversation.

MRS. HIGGINS. Not as long as she is in Henry's hands.

HIGGINS [aggrieved] Do you mean that my language is improper?

MRS. HIGGINS. No, dearest: it would be quite proper--say on a canal
barge; but it would not be proper for her at a garden party.

HIGGINS [deeply injured] Well I must say--

PICKERING [interrupting him] Come, Higgins: you must learn to know
yourself. I haven't heard such language as yours since we used to
review the volunteers in Hyde Park twenty years ago.

HIGGINS [sulkily] Oh, well, if you say so, I suppose I don't always
talk like a bishop.

MRS. HIGGINS [quieting Henry with a touch] Colonel Pickering: will you
tell me what is the exact state of things in Wimpole Street?

PICKERING [cheerfully: as if this completely changed the subject] Well,
I have come to live there with Henry. We work together at my Indian
Dialects; and we think it more convenient--

MRS. HIGGINS. Quite so. I know all about that: it's an excellent
arrangement. But where does this girl live?

HIGGINS. With us, of course. Where would she live?

MRS. HIGGINS. But on what terms? Is she a servant? If not, what is she?

PICKERING [slowly] I think I know what you mean, Mrs. Higgins.

HIGGINS. Well, dash me if I do! I've had to work at