George Bernard Shaw a penn State Electronic Classics Series Publication

buttoning her gloves]. I’m going to the church to see your
father married, Eliza. You had better come in the brougham
with me. Colonel Pickering can go on with the bridegroom.
Mrs. Higgins goes out. Eliza comes to the middle of the room
between the centre window and the ottoman. Pickering joins
her.
DOOLITTLE
. Bridegroom! What a word! It makes a man
realize his position, somehow. [He takes up his hat and goes
towards the door].
PICKERING
. Before I go, Eliza, do forgive him and come
back to us.
LIZA
. I don’t think papa would allow me. Would you, dad?
DOOLITTLE 
[sad but magnanimous] They played you off
very cunning, Eliza, them two sportsmen. If it had been only
one of them, you could have nailed him. But you see, there
was two; and one of them chaperoned the other, as you might
say. [To Pickering] It was artful of you, Colonel; but I bear
no malice: I should have done the same myself. I been the
victim of one woman after another all my life; and I don’t
grudge you two getting the better of Eliza. I shan’t interfere.
It’s time for us to go, Colonel. So long, Henry. See you in St.
George’s, Eliza. [He goes out].
PICKERING 
[coaxing] Do stay with us, Eliza. [He follows
Doolittle].
Eliza goes out on the balcony to avoid being alone with Higgins.
He rises and joins her there. She immediately comes back into
the room and makes for the door; but he goes along the balcony
quickly and gets his back to the door before she reaches it.
HIGGINS
. Well, Eliza, you’ve had a bit of your own back,
as you call it. Have you had enough? and are you going to be
reasonable? Or do you want any more?
LIZA
. You want me back only to pick up your slippers and
put up with your tempers and fetch and carry for you.
HIGGINS
. I haven’t said I wanted you back at all.

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77
Shaw
LIZA
. Oh, indeed. Then what are we talking about?
HIGGINS
. About you, not about me. If you come back I
shall treat you just as I have always treated you. I can’t change
my nature; and I don’t intend to change my manners. My
manners are exactly the same as Colonel Pickering’s.
LIZA
. That’s not true. He treats a flower girl as if she was a
duchess.
HIGGINS
. And I treat a duchess as if she was a flower girl.
LIZA
. I see. [She turns away composedly, and sits on the otto-
man, facing the window]. The same to everybody.
HIGGINS
. Just so.
LIZA
. Like father.
HIGGINS 
[grinning, a little taken down] Without accepting
the comparison at all points, Eliza, it’s quite true that your
father is not a snob, and that he will be quite at home in any
station of life to which his eccentric destiny may call him.
[Seriously] The great secret, Eliza, is not having bad manners
or good manners or any other particular sort of manners,
but having the same manner for all human souls: in short,
behaving as if you were in Heaven, where there are no third-
class carriages, and one soul is as good as another.
LIZA
. Amen. You are a born preacher.
HIGGINS 
[irritated] The question is not whether I treat
you rudely, but whether you ever heard me treat anyone else
better.
LIZA 
[with sudden sincerity] I don’t care how you treat me. I
don’t mind your swearing at me. I don’t mind a black eye:
I’ve had one before this. But [standing up and facing him] I
won’t be passed over.
HIGGINS
. Then get out of my way; for I won’t stop for
you. You talk about me as if I were a motor bus.
LIZA
. So you are a motor bus: all bounce and go, and no
consideration for anyone. But I can do without you: don’t
think I can’t.
HIGGINS
. I know you can. I told you you could.
LIZA 
[wounded, getting away from him to the other side of the