“Well, things happen.”
“Yes, but you can stop them happening very often.”
“How?”
“Just by willing it.”
“Yes,” said Phyl meditatively, “but how are you to use your will against what comes unexpectedly. Now that telegram yesterday morning took me to Grangersons with Miss Pinckney. Suppose—suppose I had broken my leg or, say, fallen into a well there and got drowned—that would have been Fate.”
“No,” said Pinckney, “carelessness, the telegram would not have drowned you, but your carelessness in going too close to the well.”
“Suppose,” said Phyl, “instead of that, Mr. Silas Grangerson had shot me by accident with a gun—the telegram would have brought me to that without any carelessness of mine.”
“No, it couldn’t,” said Pinckney lightly, “it would still have been your own fault for going near such a hare-brained scamp. Oh, I’m only joking, what I really mean is that nine times out of ten the thing people call Fate is nothing more than want of foresight.”
“And the tenth time it is Fate,” said Phyl rising.