He lifted a heavy letter opener and chopped down, cutting off the head of the still-gasping fish. "And that," he said bitterly, "is predestiny!" "All of which proves--?" asked Marie. "Hedgerly exists," said Peter. "But suppose Hedgerly exists only as a probability. A probability that he himself has made high. You see, there is always the probability that any man will meet any woman. Suppose the outcome of this probability was strong enough for the outcome--Hedgerly--to invent time travel, and then come back here to insure the probability?" "I think I see," said Joan with a twinge of doubt. "Well, all we have to do is to be darned sure that his own particular probability does not occur. Then he won't occur, and all of this will not occur, and we--" "Look," said Tony excitedly, "it may be grasping at straws, but it seems to me that anything that is as certain as your friend ... your, ah, grandson ... Hedgerly claims shouldn't require a lot of outside aid." Marie brightened, and then looked glum. "There's one thing that we all forget," she said unhappily. "We're speaking of predestiny as though we were a bunch of people going through the lines of a play. That may or may not be so. Let's face it, predestiny means that we may or may not know what our next move may be. We do not know, and there seems to be no way of finding out. Therefore whether or not our acts are all written need not take any of the fun out of life." Tony faced her in surprise, "Just what are you advocating?" he demanded. She reached up and took his hand. "Tony, never doubt that I love you. Yet Peter is a nice fellow, and had I met him first I'm reasonably sure that we could have been happy together." "All right," nodded Tony. "Granted that love is a matter of coincidence, of the desirable factors of personality, propinquity, and propitiousness, so what?" Marie looked unhappy. "He ... Hedgerly ... did win a nine-horse parlay, didn't he?" "Yeah." "He is here." "Indubitably--and damnably!" "Well," concluded Marie, "it is distasteful, but it seems ordained. And when--like going to the dentist--you're faced with something distasteful, there's little point in fuming over it. Do it--and forget it!" Joan jumped to her feet. Then she sat down dejected. "Beating my head against the wall," she said. "All right. I give up." Peter thought for a moment. "Look," he said brightly, "sometimes people must take chances. Sometimes people gotta ride close to the edge in order to gain safety. I suggest that we all elope to Yuma and have a double wedding!" Tony advanced upon Peter with fire in his eye. "You're going to let that character get away with this?" he demanded. "I'll kill him first." "No," said Peter shaking his head. "That won't remove the truth of his birth. What must be done is to prevent it in the first place!" "By going through with it?" snorted Tony.