Long hours afterward when I opened my eyes, his face would be bending anxiously over me, and I'd smile wanly up at him, and he'd say in a choking whisper, "Thank heaven, she lives!" I would be lying in this downstairs guest chamber instead of my own room, this being handier, and presently he'd see this picture of himself hanging on the wall. Then—well, suffice it to say, it would lead finally to a beautiful and touching scene like the one I saw at the movies Wednesday afternoon, in the last act of "The Harvest Moon."
After I went upstairs that night, I thought of still another way for us to meet, which I shall write down because it would make a good scene in a novel, and I am beginning to think I shall start another one soon instead of "Divided," which now seems amateurish and childish to me. This is the scene.
I would be a beautiful Red Cross nurse, serving with the Allies somewhere in France. Into the ward, where I was keeping vigil some night, would be brought a wounded officer, a member of the medical corps who had risked his life giving aid to the dying in the trenches. He would be too badly hurt for me to recognize him at first, till I found his mother's picture over his heart, and my calling his name would bring him back to consciousness.
"How did you find me?" he would murmur feebly. "How did you know?" And I'd say, "Because, far away across the seas in my old home on Cape Cod, hangs the picture of 'little John Wynne,' as he used to be. My guardian angel led me hither."
"You . . . are my . . . angel," he would whisper, and relapse into unconsciousness. I could make it awfully effective to have him die, after I'd nursed him tenderly for weeks, but I can't bear to. I'd rather have it end the way I'd want it to end in real life if I should really meet him on a foreign battle-field.
Probably, though, if I ever do meet him, it'll be just my luck to be coming in from blue-berrying the way I was last week with a bee-sting on my lip that swelled it up till I was a sight for the gods.
Oh, if we could only make things happen actually the way we can in our day-dreams, what a thrilling thing Life would be from start to finish!