"I shall be all right here. You 'd best go at once and get some sleep. Your eyes look heavy."
Every minute that he stood near her he grew more reluctant to leave. It seemed like desertion. As he still stood irresolute, she decided for him.
"You must go now," she insisted.
"Will you call me if you are even so much as worried—even if it is only a blind making a noise?"
"Yes, and that will make me feel quite safe."
The booming of a distant clock—jailer of civilization—warned him that he must delay no longer. He took her hand a moment and then turned back into his free barren world.
He determined to dine somewhere down town and then spend the evening at a theatre. It was not what he wished, but he did not dare to go back to his room. He did not crave the movement of the crowds as he had last night, and yet he felt the need of something that would keep him from thinking. He jumped into the waiting cab and was driven to Park Row, where he got out. He had not eaten anything all day and felt faint.
Instead, however, of seeking one of the more pretentious dining rooms he dropped into a quiet restaurant and ate a simple meal. Then he came out and started to walk leisurely towards the Belasco.
He had not proceeded a hundred yards before his plan was very materially changed. He heard a cry, turned quickly, and saw a messenger boy sprawling in the street. The boy, in darting across, had tripped over a rope attached to an automobile having a second large machine in tow. The latter, the driver unable to turn because of vehicles which had crowded in on both sides of it, was bearing down upon the boy, who was either stunned or too frightened to move. This Donaldson took in at a glance as he dived under the belly of a horse, seized the boy and, having time for nothing else, held him above his head, dropping him upon the radiator of the approaching machine as it bore him to the ground. The chauffeur had shoved on his brakes, but they were weak. The momentum threw Donaldson hard enough to stun him for a moment and was undoubtedly sufficient to have killed the boy.
When Donaldson rose to his feet he found himself uninjured but something of a hero. Several newspaper photographers who happened to be passing (as newspaper photographers have a way of doing) snapped him. A reporter friend of Saul's recognized him and asked for a statement.