Pickering [indulgently, being rather bored] Oh,
that will be all right, Mrs. Higgins. [He rises to
go].
Higgins [rising also] We’ll find her some
light employment.
Pickering. She’s happy enough.
Don’t you worry about her. Good-bye. [He
shakes hands as if he were consoling a frightened child,
and makes for the door].
Higgins. Anyhow, there’s no good bothering
now. The thing’s done. Good-bye, mother.
[He kisses her, and follows Pickering].
Pickering [turning for a final consolation] There
are plenty of openings. We’ll do what’s
right. Good-bye.
Higgins [to Pickering as they go out together]
Let’s take her to the Shakespear exhibition
at Earls Court.
Pickering. Yes: let’s. Her
remarks will be 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!!!
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.
