Martin: That's not fair. People who give it up must always be told, in triumph if not in pity. Jessica: I sha'n't tell. Martin: You don't know. Jessica: I'll box your ears. Martin: If you do--! Jessica: Quarreling's silly. Martin: Who began it? Jessica: You did. Men always do. Martin: Always. What was the beginning of your quarrel with men? Jessica: They say girls can't throw straight. Martin: Silly asses! I'd like to see them throw as straight as girls. Did you ever watch them at it? Men can throw straight in one direction only--but watch a girl! she'll throw straight all round the compass. Why, a man will throw straight at the moon and miss it by the eighth of an inch; but a girl will throw at the sun and hit the moon as straight as a die. I never saw a girl throw yet without straightway finding some mark or other. Jessica: Yes, but you can't convince a man till he's hit. Martin: Hit him then. Jessica: It didn't convince him. He said I'd missed. And he said he had hi--he wasn't convinced. Martin: Did he really say that? These men can no more talk straight than throw straight. Can you talk straight, Jessica? Jessica: Yes, Martin. Martin: Then tell me what your apple-tree has to do with my story. Jessica: Bother. All right. Because wisdom and beauty and courage and laughter can all be measured in pint-pots. And any or all of these things can be dipped out of a fountain. You thought I didn't know, but I do know. Martin: (Take care!) Where did you get all this knowledge? Jessica: And that was why Margaret could take what she took from Lionel and Hugh and Heriot and Ambrose, because it was something measurable. Yes, because even a gay spirit can be sad at times, and a strong nerve weak, and a beautiful face ugly, and a clever brain dull. But when it came to taking what Hobb had, she could take and take without exhausting it, and give and give and always have something left to give, because that wasn't measurable. And the tree is the tree, and love is never anything else but love. Martin: Oh, Jessica! who has been your schoolmaster? Jessica: And so when she threw away her four pints what did it matter, any more than when the tree loses its leaves, or its flowers, or snaps a twig, or drops its apples? For though nobody else thought them lovely or clever or witty or splendid, she and Hobb were so to each other for ever and ever; because-- Martin: Because? Jessica: It doesn't matter. I've told you enough, and you thought I couldn't tell you anything, and I simply hated saying it, but you thought I couldn't throw straight and I can, and your riddle was as simple as pie. Martin: (Look out, I tell you!) You have thrown as straight as a die. And now I will ask you a straight question. Will you give me your key to Gillian's prison? Jessica: Yes. Martin: Because you dreaded lest Hobb's rose was blighted for ever? Jessica: No. Because it's a shame she should be there at all. And she gave him the key. Martin: You honest dear.