"What's the objection to going now? Won't the food keep?"
"If you've made up your mind, it doesn't matter whether the food keeps or not. I don't suppose there is any reason not to go, except that you ought to be tired."
"I almost died resting for the last five days. I could walk there."
Jean went back to take off her apron and Gregory followed.
"It'll be better than staying here," he whispered, with his arms about her. "And it was going to be such a nice evening."
Jean patted his cheek. "Never mind. We'll have a lot more. Now run along and call a taxi."
Dr. Mary was indefatigable. She insisted on inspecting every floor and getting the view from every side. And, in the end, she pronounced it "a darn good job." But Jean did not feel it was "a job" at all. It was a bit of her life and Gregory's. It was built of the hours they had spent together. It was not an insensate thing. It was alive. She and Gregory had created it. Her hand moved on the clean, white wall.
"You nice living thing. Make everybody well and don't let anybody die."
Jean smiled. It was somewhat like a prayer.
When there was nothing left but the solarium on the roof, they sat down to rest on one of its green benches. In the afterglow, the East River ran a stream of gold. The span of the bridges hung airy webs in the heat-hazed air. Far below little tugs chugged up and down, whistling. The gray of their smoke filtered through the gold, softening it to filmy gauze. But across the river, on the workhouse island, a bell clanged. From the last sunny spots, old men and women came reluctantly, and the hideous red buildings swallowed them, one by one. Soon they would all be asleep, the old men in their wards and the old women in theirs. Perhaps in the night some would die quietly in their sleep. In the morning the superintendent would look up the names on the books, notify any relatives he could find, and send blanks to charity organizations that there was room for a few more of the homeless old.