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!!!

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.