Standhurst grinned.
"Now are you still determined to go back to the hospital?" Jennie didn't answer. "Well, Jennie?" he asked.
Jennie stared at him, then at Aida.
They were watching her intently.
She started to speak but no words came to her lips.
Mrs. Schwartz reached over suddenly and patted her hand reassuringly.
"Give her a little time to think it over, Charlie," she said gently. "It's a decision a girl has to make for herself." There was a curiously fond look in Standhurst's eyes as he smiled at Jennie.
"She'll have to make up her mind pretty soon," he said softly. "There isn't that much time left."
He didn't know it then, but there were exactly two days.
He turned his head to watch her as she came into his room two mornings later.
"I think I’ll stay in bed today, Jennie," he said in a low voice.
Drawing the drapes back from the windows, she looked at him in the light that spilled across the bed.
His face was white and the skin parchment-thin over the bones. He kept his eyes partly closed, as if the light hurt them.
She crossed to the side of the bed and looked down.
"Do you want me to call the doctor, Charlie?"
"What could he do?" he asked, a faint line of perspiration appearing on his forehead.
She picked up a small towel from the bedside table and wiped his face.
Then she pulled down the blanket and lifted his old-fashioned nightshirt.
Quickly she replaced the waste pouch and saw his eyes dart to the pouch as she covered him.
She picked up the waste bag and went into the bathroom.
"Pretty bad?" he asked, his eyes on her face, when she returned.
"Pretty bad."
"I know," he whispered. "I looked before you came in. It was as black as the hubs of hell."
She slipped an arm behind him and held him up as she straightened his pillow. She let him sink back gently.
"I don't know. Some mornings I've seen it worse."
"Don't kid me." He closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "I got a hunch today's the day," he whispered, his eyes on her face.
"You'll feel better after I get some orange juice into you."
"The hell with that," he whispered vehemently. "Who ever heard of going to hell on orange juice?
Get me some champagne!"
Silently she put down the orange juice and picked up a tall glass. She filled it with cubes from the Thermos bucket and poured the champagne over it.
Putting the glass straw into the glass, she held it for him.
"I can still hold my own drink," he said.
The teletype in the corner of the room began to chatter.
She walked over to look at it. "What is it?"
"Some speech Landon made at a Republican dinner last night."
"Turn it off," he said testily. He held out the glass to her and she took it and put it back on the table.
The telephone began to ring.
She picked it up.
"It's the feature editor in L.A.," she said. "He's returning the call you made to him yesterday."
"Tell him I want Dick Tracy for the paper out here."
She nodded and repeated the message into the telephone and hung up.
She turned back and saw his face was covered with perspiration again.
"Your son Charles made me promise to call him if I thought it was necessary."
"Don't," he snapped. "Who needs him here to gloat over me?
The son of a bitch has been waiting around for years for me to kick off. He wants to get his hands on the papers." He chuckled soundlessly. "I’ll bet the damn fool has the papers come out for Roosevelt the day after the funeral." A spasm of pain shot through him and he sat up suddenly, almost bolt upright, in the bed. "Oh, Jesus!" he said, clutching at his belly.
Instantly, her arm was around his shoulders, supporting him, while with her other hand, she reached for a syrette of morphine.
"Not yet, Jennie, please."
She looked at him for a moment, then put the syrette back on the table.
"All right," she said. "Tell me when."
He sank back against the pillow and she wiped his face again.