Or can he not?
Is every man's life subject to pure accident, is it only the race, the genus, the species, that has a universal reference?
Or is this not true, is there no such thing as pure accident?
Has EVERYTHING that happens a universal significance?
Has it?
Birkin, pondering as he stood there, had forgotten Mrs Crich, as she had forgotten him.
He did not believe that there was any such thing as accident.

It all hung together, in the deepest sense.
Just as he had decided this, one of the Crich daughters came up, saying: 'Won't you come and take your hat off, mother dear?
We shall be sitting down to eat in a minute, and it's a formal occasion, darling, isn't it ?' She drew her arm through her mother's, and they went away.

Birkin immediately went to talk to the nearest man.
The gong sounded for the luncheon.

The men looked up, but no move was made to the dining-room.

The women of the house seemed not to feel that the sound had meaning for them.