Liza [trivially] Of course:  that is his profession.

Higgins.  Damnation!

Liza [continuing] It was just like learning to dance in the fashionable way:  there was nothing more than that in it.  But do you know what began my real education?

Pickering.  What?

Liza [stopping her work for a moment] Your calling me Miss Doolittle that day when I first came to Wimpole Street.  That was the beginning of self-respect for me. [She resumes her stitching].  And there were a hundred little things you never noticed, because they came naturally to you.  Things about standing up and taking off your hat and opening doors—­

Pickering.  Oh, that was nothing.

Liza.  Yes:  things that showed you thought and felt about me as if I were something better than a scullerymaid; though of course I know you would have been just the same to a scullery-maid if she had been let in the drawing-room.  You never took off your boots in the dining room when I was there.

Pickering.  You mustn’t mind that.  Higgins takes off his boots all over the place.

Liza.  I know.  I am not blaming him.  It is his way, isn’t it?  But it made such a difference to me that you didn’t do it.  You see, really and truly, apart from the things anyone can pick up (the dressing and the proper way of speaking, and so on), the difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she’s treated.  I shall always be a flower girl to Professor Higgins, because he always treats me as a flower girl, and always will; but I know I can be a lady to you, because you always treat me as a lady, and always will.

Mrs. Higgins.  Please don’t grind your teeth, Henry.

Pickering.  Well, this is really very nice of you, Miss Doolittle.

Liza.  I should like you to call me Eliza, now, if you would.

Pickering.  Thank you.  Eliza, of course.

Liza.  And I should like Professor Higgins to call me Miss
Doolittle.

Higgins.  I’ll see you damned first.

Mrs. Higgins.  Henry!  Henry!

Pickering [laughing] Why don’t you slang back at him?  Don’t stand it.  It would do him a lot of good.

Liza.  I can’t.  I could have done it once; but now I can’t go back to it.  Last night, when I was wandering about, a girl spoke to me; and I tried to get back into the old way with her; but it was no use.  You told me, you know, that when a child is brought to a foreign country, it picks up the language in a few weeks, and forgets its own.  Well, I am a child in your country.  I have forgotten my own language, and can speak nothing but yours.  That’s the real break-off with the corner of Tottenham Court Road.  Leaving Wimpole Street finishes it.

Pickering [much alarmed] Oh! but you’re coming back to Wimpole
Street, aren’t you?  You’ll forgive Higgins?