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.

HIGGINS [deeply injured] Well I must say--

PICKERING [interrupting him] Come, Higgins: you must learn to
know yourself. I haven't heard such language as yours since we
used to review the volunteers in Hyde Park twenty years ago.