Higgins.  That’s all right.  Thank you, Mrs. Pearce.  Bundle her off to the bath-room.

Liza [rising reluctantly and suspiciously] You’re a great bully, you are.  I won’t stay here if I don’t like.  I won’t let nobody wallop me.  I never asked to go to Bucknam Palace, I didn’t.  I was never in trouble with the police, not me.  I’m a good girl—­

Mrs. Pearce.  Don’t answer back, girl.  You don’t understand the gentleman.  Come with me. [She leads the way to the door, and holds it open for Eliza].

Liza [as she goes out] Well, what I say is right.  I won’t go near the king, not if I’m going to have my head cut off.  If I’d known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn’t have come here.  I always been a good girl; and I never offered to say a word to him; and I don’t owe him nothing; and I don’t care; and I won’t be put upon; and I have my feelings the same as anyone else—­

Mrs. Pearce shuts the door; and Eliza’s plaints are no longer audible.  Pickering comes from the hearth to the chair and sits astride it with his arms on the back.

Pickering.  Excuse the straight question, Higgins.  Are you a man of good character where women are concerned?

Higgins [moodily] Have you ever met a man of good character where women are concerned?

Pickering.  Yes:  very frequently.

Higgins [dogmatically, lifting himself on his hands to the level of the piano, and sitting on it with a bounce] Well, I haven’t.  I find that the moment I let a woman make friends with me, she becomes jealous, exacting, suspicious, and a damned nuisance.  I find that the moment I let myself make friends with a woman, I become selfish and tyrannical.  Women upset everything.  When you let them into your life, you find that the woman is driving at one thing and you’re driving at another.

Pickering.  At what, for example?

Higgins [coming off the piano restlessly] Oh, Lord knows!  I suppose the woman wants to live her own life; and the man wants to live his; and each tries to drag the other on to the wrong track.  One wants to go north and the other south; and the result is that both have to go east, though they both hate the east wind. [He sits down on the bench at the keyboard].  So here I am, a confirmed old bachelor, and likely to remain so.

Pickering [rising and standing over him gravely] Come, Higgins!  You know what I mean.  If I’m to be in this business I shall feel responsible for that girl.  I hope it’s understood that no advantage is to be taken of her position.

Higgins.  What!  That thing!  Sacred, I assure you. [Rising to explain] You see, she’ll be a pupil; and teaching would be impossible unless pupils were sacred.  I’ve taught scores of American millionairesses how to speak English:  the best looking women in the world.  I’m seasoned.  They might as well be blocks of wood.  I might as well be a block of wood.  It’s—­