Officer Schulig was willing. He tried to. He made a leap for the porch steps, but Saint Harvey's linked hands had encircled the officer's neck and the two men tottered to the edge of the steps.
“Chail!” yelled Schulig, pushing at Harvey's chest. “More chail for this, I bet you!”
Then they reached the edge of the porch and fell and rolled down the steps together, locked in a close but most unaffectionate embrace.
CHAPTER VIII
What Henrietta said to Dr. Grace, who was young and had a twinkle in his eye, does not matter, but when she returned to Miss Susan's for dinner, at noon, Lem was still seemingly unconscious and as rigid as before. Miss Susan said the doctor had agreed with Henrietta's diagnosis in general, and had added that the shock of the fear of jail had probably reacted on the supersensitiveness of the boy. The doctor had said, Miss Susan told Henrietta, that the boy's pulse and temperature were normal and that there was nothing to fear. There might, he had said, be recurrences of this cataleptic state from time to time. The only treatment, he said, was to leave the boy alone while in these trance states and to see that as soon as he came out of them he was fed plenteously.
Henrietta smiled secretly as she turned away from Miss Susan, so well had Dr. Grace played the game.
Lorna was later arriving for dinner. She had, with Gay, purposely avoided Henrietta in order to call on Dr. Grace, for she had a question to ask him.
“Doctor,” she said, when she and Gay stood in his office and had spoken of Lem, “we wanted to ask you something. About Lem. He's in no danger?”