s pockets, as if
condescending to a trivial subject out of pure kindness]. I shouldn't
bother about it if I were you. I should imagine you won't have much
difficulty in settling yourself, somewhere or other, though I hadn't
quite realized that you were going away. [She looks quickly at him: he
does not look at her, but examines the dessert stand on the piano and
decides that he will eat an apple]. You might marry, you know. [He
bites a large piece out of the apple, and munches it noisily]. You see,
Eliza, all men are not confirmed old bachelors like me and the Colonel.
Most men are the marrying sort (poor devils!); and you're not
bad-looking; it's quite a pleasure to look at you sometimes--not now,
of course, because you're crying and looking as ugly as the very devil;
but when you're all right and quite yourself, you're what I should call
attractive. That is, to the people in the marrying line, you
understand. You go to bed and have a good nice rest; and then get up
and look at yourself in the glass; and you won't feel so cheap.
Eliza again looks at him, speechless, and does not stir.
The look is quite lost on him: he eats his apple with a dreamy
expression of happiness, as it is quite a good one.
HIGGINS [a genial afterthought occurring to him] I daresay my mother
could find some chap or other who would do very well--
LIZA. We were above that at the corner of Tottenham Court Road.
HIGGINS [waking up] What do you mean?
LIZA. I sold flowers. I didn't sell myself. Now you've made a lady of
me I'm not fit to sell anything else. I wish you'd left me where you
found me.
HIGGINS [slinging the core of the apple decisively into the grate]
Tosh, Eliza. Don't you insult human relations by dragging all this cant
about buying and selling into it. You needn't marry the fellow if you
don't like him.
LIZA. What else am I to do?
HIGGINS. Oh, lots of things. What about your old idea of a florist's
shop? Pickering could set you up in one: he's lots of money.
[Chuckling] He'll have to pay for all those togs you have been wearing
today; and that, with the hire of the jewellery, will make a big hole
in two hundred pounds. Why, six months ago you would have thought it
the millennium to have a flower shop of your own. Come! you'll be all
right. I must clear off to bed: I'm devilish sleepy. By the way, I came
down for something: I forget what it was.
LIZA. Your slippers.
HIGGINS. Oh yes, of course. You shied them at m
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