MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [clicks her tongue sympathetically]!!!

LIZA [in the same tragic tone] But it’s my belief they done the old woman in.

MRS. HIGGINS [puzzled] Done her in?

LIZA Y-e-e-e-es, Lord love you! Why should she die of influenza ? She come through diphtheria right enough the year before. I saw her with my own eyes. Fairly blue with it, she was. They all thought she was dead; but my father he kept ladling gin down her throat til she came to so sudden that she bit the bowl off the spoon.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [startled] Dear me!

LIZA [piling up the indictment] What call would a woman with that strength in her have to die of influenza? What become of her new straw hat that should have come to me? Somebody pinched it; and what I say is, them as pinched it done her in.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL What does doing her in mean?

HIGGINS [hastily] Oh, thats the new small talk. To do a person in means to kill them.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [to ELIZA, horrified] You surely dont believe that your aunt was killed?

LIZA Do I not! Them she lived with would have killed her for a hat-pin, let alone a hat.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL But it cant have been right for your father to pour spirits down her throat like that. It might have killed her.

LIZA Not her. Gin was mother’s milk to her. Besides, he’d poured so much down his own throat that he knew the good of it.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL Do you mean that he drank?

LIZA Drank! My word! Something chronic.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL How dreadful for you!

LIZA Not a bit. It never did him no harm what I could see. But then he did not keep it up regular. [Cheerfully] On the burst, as you might say, from time to time. And always more agreeable when he had a drop in. When he was out of work, my mother used to give him fourpence and tell him to go out and not come back until he’d drunk himself cheerful and loving-like. Theres lots of women has to make their husbands drunk to make them fit to live with. [Now quite at her ease] You see, it’s like this. If a man has a bit of a conscience, it always takes him when he’s sober; and then it makes him low-spirited. A drop of booze just takes that off and makes him happy. [To FREDDY, who is in convulsions of suppressed laughter] Here! what are you sniggering at?

FREDDY The new small talk. You do it so awfully well.

LIZA If I was doing it proper, what was you laughing at? [To HIGGINS] Have I said anything I oughtnt?

MRS. HIGGINS [interposing] Not at all, Miss Doolittle.

LIZA Well, thats a mercy, anyhow. [Expansively] What I always say is —

HIGGINS [rising and looking at his watch] Ahem!

LIZA [looking round at him; taking the hint; and rising] Well: I must go. [They all rise. FREDDY goes to the door]. So pleased to have met you. Good-bye. [She shakes hands with MRS. HIGGINS ].

MRS. HIGGINS Good-bye.

LIZA Good-bye, Colonel Pickering.

PICKERING Good-bye, Miss Doolittle. [They shake hands].

LIZA [nodding to the others] Good-bye, all.

FREDDY [opening the door for her] Are you walking across the Park, Miss Doolittle? If so —

LIZA Walk! Not bloody^{54} likely. [Sensation]. I am going in a taxi. [She goes out].

PICKERING gasps and sits down. FREDDY goes out on the balcony to catch another glimpse of ELIZA.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [suffering from shock] Well, I really cant get used to the new ways.

CLARA [throwing herself discontentedly into the Elizabethan chair] Oh, it’s all right, mamma, quite right. People will think we never go anywhere or see anybody if you are so old-fashioned.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL I daresay I am very old-fashioned; but I do hope you wont begin using that expression, Clara. I have got accustomed to hear you talking about men as rotters, [214] and calling everything filthy and beastly;[215] though I do think it horrible and unladylike. But this last is really too much. Dont you think so, Colonel Pickering?

PICKERING Dont ask me. Ive been away in India for several years; and manners have changed so much that I sometimes dont know whether I’m at a respectable dinner-table or in a ship’s forecastle.[216]

CLARA It’s all a matter of habit. Theres no right or wrong in it. Nobody means anything by it. And it’s so quaint, and gives such a smart emphasis to things that are not in themselves very witty. I find the new small talk delightful and quite innocent.

MRS. EYNSFORD HILL [risins] Well, after that, I think it’s time for us to go.

PICKERING and HIGGINS rise.

CLARA [rising] Oh yes: we have three at-homes to go to still. Good-bye, Mrs. Higgins. Good-bye, Colonel Pickering. Good-bye, Professor Higgins.

HIGGINS [coming grimly at her from the divan, and accompanying her to the door] Good-bye. Be sure you try on that small talk at the three at-homes. Dont be nervous about it. Pitch it in strong.

CLARA [all smiles] I will. Good-bye. Such nonsense, all this early Victorian prudery!

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 Dont. It’s not compulsory, you know. Youll 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 mustnt 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 doesnt 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. Dont 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 shes not presentable. Shes a triumph of your art and of her dressmaker’s; but if you suppose for a moment that she doesnt give herself away in every sentence she utters, you must be perfectly cracked about her.

PICKERING But dont 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 ?