The next morning at six sharp, Higgins was awake and patrolling the study. Eliza was clearly not awake yet. He paced about, frustrated at how she continued to inconvenience him. Higgins waited until fifteen after the hour. In the haste of all the events of the past two days, he had forgotten to leave a note for the household staff that he would be awake at such an early hour. Therefore he was all alone in the study; sans coffee, sans breakfast and sans Eliza. Frustrated, he stormed up the stairs and began pounding on Eliza's door.
To his shock, she answered, still in her nightdress with hair flowing loosely around her shoulders. She stood before him for a moment sleepily, before realizing her state. She ducked behind the door.
"I thought you were Mrs. Pearce." She muttered sleepily, with roses in her cheek.
Higgins shook off the awkwardness of the moment. "No, but it doesn't matter. I need you downstairs as quickly as you can possibly..." He gestured to her flippantly. He turned abruptly and walked downstairs almost tripping over the last step.
He shook his head and muttered to himself, "Such is the penance of letting a woman in your life."
After another several moments, Eliza waltzed into the study breathless. She wore a maroon house dress with her hair piled neatly upon her head. Higgins caught a glimpse of her and momentarily wished that she would have let it remained in the locks that covered her shoulders. It was far more flattering to her face...but then he stopped his thinking immediately.
He cleared his throat and handed her a stack of papers. "I need these sorted. They have been on my desk for a week and I can't make order of it all." He walked across the room and focused his attention elsewhere. The linguists from the French Embassy would be there at noon and he had far too much work to do.
Mrs. Pearce brought breakfast to the professor promptly at ten, as he normally requested, but she nearly dropped the tray when she saw Eliza sitting there. She tried to cover her astonishment with a cough.
"Oh Eliza, you've returned. Thank heavens! We were worried."
"Quite right Mrs. Pearce. I apologise for any inconvenience I may have caused. I am back for good now."
Mrs. Pearce looked sternly at the professor. The housemaids of the other homes on Wimpole Street were constantly curious and chatting about the unmarried female in the home of a notorious bachelor, and as the Matron of the Higgins household, she felt it a chink in their armor to perpetuate any of the rumors. This did not help matters.
"Indeed." She whispered curtly towards the professor.
"Oh don't fret Mrs. Pearce, I've hired Eliza as my secretary. You can tell all the maids in the neighborhood. That should ease your concerns."
Mrs. Pearce bit her lip. "Yes sir."
She walked out of the room shaking her head.
Several members of the French Embassy, mostly a few socio-linguists interested in the class system of Modern England for purposes of international relations and a few rhetoricians who were interested in the sound of their own voices, made their way to the study of 27A Wimpole Street. Professor Higgins insisted that his company speak only in English, so that his secretary would be able to transcribe. However the French accents so muddled the clarity of the English words that Eliza found herself bored. She began to sketch in the corner of her paper when she suddenly found herself the subject of conversation.
"But who is this young lady, with no accent?" asked one older gentleman who devilishly stroked his beard.
"She is my secretary." Higgins answered slyly, sensing a challenge about to rise.
"Yes, yes, Je sais. Mais, where is she from?"
Eliza began to answer but Higgins stepped in.
"Devonshire." He smirked.
"Vous faux-parlez professeur. She has none of the country vices in her speech."
"Well sir, what say she isn't from Devonshire? Then from where would you perceive her to originate?" Higgins was enjoying the majesty of toying with the French phonetician.
The older gentleman walked over to Eliza, who was sitting royally in her chair. He circled her like a hawk ready to scavenge a dying animal.
"The high cheek bone, the dark hair. Are you French, mon chére?"
"No." Eliza whispered
"Non?" The Frenchman seemed perplexed
"You flatter your race Monsieur Béjart. I assure you she is English in origin, now given your expertise on English dialects I welcome you to interrogate her."
Eliza looked at Henry whose eyes were sparkling like a young school boy in joviality.
M. Béjart's eyes sparkled at the thought. "Give me one half hour with her professor and I will crack her like a egg." The Frenchman around him chortled heartily.
The Professor stepped across the room to the gentleman.
"AN egg." Higgins corrected him.
Eliza felt the blood rise in her cheeks. He was using her, displaying her as though she were a circus exhibition. She thought of all the lies he had made her rehearse day and night for the embassy; who her father was, where she came from, the legacy and pure aristocratic bloodlines. 'Quite an actress' Higgins had once said to her. She wished he could read her thoughts...
'I'll show you an actress' she thought to herself and with great dignity she followed M. Béjart out of the room to be interrogated. Her eyes met the professor's as she was leaving. Her glare hit him in the lower abdomen and he felt it stab its way through his body.
' I wonder what the devil she's so angry about.' He thought to himself and continued carrying on his meeting with his clientele.