Pygmalion

HIGGINS [impatiently] Well, she must talk about something. [He controls

himself and sits down again]. Oh, she'll be all right: don't you fuss.

Pickering is in it with me. I've a sort of bet on that I'll pass her

off as a duchess in six months. I started on her some months ago; and

she's getting on like a house on fire. I shall win my bet. She has a

quick ear; and she's been easier to teach than my middle-class pupils

because she's had to learn a complete new language. She talks English

almost as you talk French.

MRS. HIGGINS. That's satisfactory, at all events.

HIGGINS. Well, it is and it isn't.

MRS. HIGGINS. What does that mean?

HIGGINS. You see, I've got her pronunciation all right; but you have to

consider not only how a girl pronounces, but what she pronounces; and

that's where--

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.]