There was also, from Randy, a long envelope enclosing a thick manuscript and very short note.
"I want you to read this, Becky. It belongs in a way to you. I don't know what I think about it. Sometimes it seems as if I had done a rather big thing, and as if it had been done without me at all. I wonder if you understand what I mean—as if I had held the pen, and it had—come—— I have sent it to the editor of one of the big magazines. Perhaps he will send it back, and it may not seem as good to me as it does at this moment. Let me know what you think."
Becky, finishing the letter, felt a bit forlorn. Randy, as a rule, wrote at length about herself and her affairs. But, of course, he had other things now to think of. She must not expect too much.
There was no time, however, in which to read the manuscript, for Cope was saying, wistfully, "Do you think you'd mind a walk in the rain?"
"No." She gathered up her letters.
"Then we'll walk across the Common."
They shared one umbrella. And they played that it was over fifty years ago when the Autocrat had walked with the young Schoolmistress. They even walked arm in arm under the umbrella. They took the long path to Boylston Street. And Cope said, "Will you take the long path with me?"
And Becky said, "Certainly."
And they both laughed. But there was no laughter in Cope's heart.
"Becky," he said, "I wish that you and I had lived a century ago in Louisberg Square."