They are interrupted by the parlor-maid, announcing guests.

The parlor-maid.  Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill. [She withdraws].

Higgins.  Oh Lord! [He rises; snatches his hat from the table; and makes for the door; but before he reaches it his mother introduces him].

Mrs. and Miss Eynsford Hill are the mother and daughter who sheltered from the rain in Covent Garden.  The mother is well bred, quiet, and has the habitual anxiety of straitened means.  The daughter has acquired a gay air of being very much at home in society:  the bravado of genteel poverty.

Mrs. Eynsford Hill [to Mrs. Higgins] How do you do? [They shake hands].

Miss Eynsford Hill.  How d’you do? [She shakes].

Mrs. Higgins [introducing] My son Henry.

Mrs. Eynsford Hill.  Your celebrated son!  I have so longed to meet you, Professor Higgins.

Higgins [glumly, making no movement in her direction] Delighted. [He backs against the piano and bows brusquely].

Miss Eynsford Hill [going to him with confident familiarity] How do you do?

Higgins [staring at her] I’ve seen you before somewhere.  I haven’t the ghost of a notion where; but I’ve heard your voice. [Drearily] It doesn’t matter.  You’d better sit down.

Mrs. Higgins.  I’m sorry to say that my celebrated son has no manners.  You mustn’t mind him.

Miss Eynsford Hill [gaily] I don’t. [She sits in the Elizabethan chair].

Mrs. Eynsford Hill [a little bewildered] Not at all. [She sits on the ottoman between her daughter and Mrs. Higgins, who has turned her chair away from the writing-table].

Higgins.  Oh, have I been rude?  I didn’t mean to be. [He goes to the central window, through which, with his back to the company, he contemplates the river and the flowers in Battersea Park on the opposite bank as if they were a frozen dessert.]

The parlor-maid returns, ushering in Pickering.

The parlor-maid.  Colonel Pickering [She withdraws].

Pickering.  How do you do, Mrs. Higgins?

Mrs. Higgins.  So glad you’ve come.  Do you know Mrs. Eynsford Hill—­Miss Eynsford Hill? [Exchange of bows.  The Colonel brings the Chippendale chair a little forward between Mrs. Hill and Mrs. Higgins, and sits down].

Pickering.  Has Henry told you what we’ve come for?

Higgins [over his shoulder] We were interrupted:  damn it!

Mrs. Higgins.  Oh Henry, Henry, really!

Mrs. Eynsford Hill [half rising] Are we in the way?

Mrs. Higgins [rising and making her sit down again] No, no.  You couldn’t have come more fortunately:  we want you to meet a friend of ours.