“He has a big tobacco business,” said David. If he did not wonder, if he took this walk as the natural pleasant stretching of his legs, he was at ease.
“Suppose you don’t like it?”
David was silent.
“Suppose you don’t like it—will you quit?”
“Why—I guess so!” It had never occurred to David. Life was life. One did not question if one liked it. The air where one was one breathed.
“Be sure of that!” Tom Rennard’s words came warm. “That is important. Hold on to your right to choose. Hold on to your right not to choose.... I never really had that right.”
David was silent again. He walked with a man, he walked with a world he had no sense of. But his legs went easy.
“I’m a lawyer,” said Tom Rennard.
“Didn’t you choose that?”
“No ... I thought I had. I dreamed of being a lawyer. I fooled myself.”