delicious.

HIGGINS. She'll mimic all the people for us when we get home.

PICKERING. Ripping. [Both are heard laughing as they go downstairs].

MRS. HIGGINS [rises with an impatient bounce, and returns to her work
at the writing-table. She sweeps a litter of disarranged papers out of
her way; snatches a sheet of paper from her stationery case; and tries
resolutely to write. At the third line she gives it up; flings down her
pen; grips the table angrily and exclaims] Oh, men! men!! men!!!

ACT IV

The Wimpole Street laboratory. Midnight. Nobody in the room. The clock
on the mantelpiece strikes twelve. The fire is not alight: it is a
summer night.

Presently Higgins and Pickering are heard on the stairs.

HIGGINS [calling down to Pickering] I say, Pick: lock up, will you. I
shan't be going out again.

PICKERING. Right. Can Mrs. Pearce go to bed? We don't want anything
more, do we?

HIGGINS. Lord, no!

Eliza opens the door and is seen on the lighted landing in opera cloak,
brilliant evening dress, and diamonds, with fan, flowers, and all
accessories. She comes to the hearth, and switches on the electric
lights there. She is tired: her pallor contrasts strongly with her dark
eyes and hair; and her expression is almost tragic. She takes off her
cloak; puts her fan and flowers on the piano; and sits down on the
bench, brooding and silent. Higgins, in evening dress, with overcoat
and hat, comes in, carrying a smoking jacket which he has picked up
downstairs. He takes off the hat and overcoat; throws them carelessly
on the newspaper stand; disposes of his coat in the same way; puts on
the smoking jacket; and throws himself wearily into the easy-chair at
the hearth. Pickering, similarly attired, comes in. He also takes off
his hat and overcoat, and is about to throw them on Higgins's when he
hesitates.

PICKERING. I say: Mrs. Pearce will row if we leave these things lying
about in the drawing-room.

HIGGINS. Oh, chuck them over the bannisters into the hall. She'll find
them there in the morning and put them away all right. She'll think we
were drunk.

PICKERING. We are, slightly. Are there any letters?

HIGGINS. I didn't look. [Pickering takes the overcoats and hats and
goes down stairs. Higgins begins half singing half yawning an air from
La Fanciulla del Golden West. Suddenly he stops and exclaims] I wonder
where the devil my slippers are!

Eliza looks at him darkly; then leaves the room.

Higgins ya