right to touch you!

JOHN

O, well, never mind.

MARY

I should like to have been there...
I'd have...

JOHN

O, well, it can't be helped now; but I'd
like to have caught it in sp...
[An idea seizes him.]

MARY

What is it?

JOHN

Can't be helped, I said. It's the very thing
that can be helped.

MARY

Can be helped, John? Whatever do you
mean?

JOHN

I mean he'd no right to stop me catching
that train. I've got the crystal, and I'll
catch it yet!

MARY

O, John, that's what you said you wouldn't
do.

JOHN

No. I said I'd do nothing to alter the past.
And I won't. I'm too content, Mary. But
this can't alter it. This is nothing.

MARY

What were you going to catch the train
for, John?

JOHN

For London. I wasn't at the office then.
It was a business appointment. There was a
man who had promised to get me a job, and
I was going up to...

MARY

John, it may alter your whole life!

JOHN

Now do listen, Mary, do listen. He never
turned up. I got a letter from him apologising
to me before I posted mine to him. It
turned out he never meant to help me, mere
meaningless affabilities. He never came to
London that day at all. I should have taken
the next train back. That can't affect the
future.

MARY

N-no, John. Still, I don't like it.

JOHN

What difference could it make?

MARY

N-n-no.

JOHN

Think how we met. We met at ARCHIE's
wedding. I take it one has to go to one's
brother's wedding. It would take a pretty
big change to alter that. And. you were her
bridesmaid. We were bound to meet. And
having once met, well, there you are. If we'd
met by chance, in a train, or anything like
that, well, then I admit some little change
might alter it. But when we met at ARCHIE's
wedding and you were her bridesmaid, why,
Mary, it's a cert. Besides, I believe in
predestination. It was our fate; we couldn't
have missed it.

MARY

No, I suppose not; still..

JOHN

Well, what?

MARY

I don't like it.

JOHN

O, Mary, I have so longed to catch that
infernal train. Just think of it, annoyed on
and off for ten years by the eight-fifteen.

MARY

I'd rather you didn't, John.

JOHN

But why?

MARY

O, John, suppose there's a railway
accident? You might be killed, and we should
never meet.

JOHN

There wasn't.

MARY

There wasn't, John? What do you mean?

JOHN

There wasn't an accident to the eight-fifteen.
It got safely to London just ten year