"Yes?"
"Have you given thought to your future?"
I shifted uncomfortably. "Well, I've only been a Claims Adjuster a little while, you know. I suppose that perhaps I might eventually get promoted, even become a District Administrator—"
He looked at me impersonally. "Dream higher," he advised.
I stood watching after Defoe's limousine, from the marquee of the hotel where he had left me to take a room and freshen up. Dream higher. He had the gift of intoxication.
Higher than a District Administrator! It could mean only—the Home Office.
Well, it was not impossible, after all. The Home Office jobs had to go to someone; the super-men who held them now—the Defoes and the Carmodys and the dozen or more others who headed up departments or filled seats on the Council of Underwriters—couldn't live forever. And the jobs had to be filled by someone.
Why not me? Only one reason, really. I was not a career man. I hadn't had the early academy training from adolescence on; I had come to the service of the Company itself relatively late in life. The calendar legislated against me.
Of course, I thought to myself, I was in a pretty good position, in a way, because of Defoe's evident interest in me. With him helping and counseling me, it might be easier.