Higgins [tempting her] Such damned nonsense!

Clara.  Such bloody nonsense!

Mrs. Eynsford Hill [convulsively] Clara!

Clara.  Ha! ha! [She goes out radiant, conscious of being thoroughly up to date, and is heard descending the stairs in a stream of silvery laughter].

Freddy [to the heavens at large] Well, I ask you [He gives it up, and comes to Mrs. Higgins].  Good-bye.

Mrs. Higgins [shaking hands] Good-bye.  Would you like to meet Miss Doolittle again?

Freddy [eagerly] Yes, I should, most awfully.

Mrs. Higgins.  Well, you know my days.

Freddy.  Yes.  Thanks awfully.  Good-bye. [He goes out].

Mrs. Eynsford Hill.  Good-bye, Mr. Higgins.

Higgins.  Good-bye.  Good-bye.

Mrs. Eynsford Hill [to Pickering] It’s no use.  I shall never be able to bring myself to use that word.

Pickering.  Don’t.  It’s not compulsory, you know.  You’ll get on quite well without it.

Mrs. Eynsford Hill.  Only, Clara is so down on me if I am not positively reeking with the latest slang.  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.