XII

Daquin pleaded with her to the hour of departure to marry Carl, but Mimi’s determination grew stronger with her pleading. As the train wound its way through the maze of tracks and puffed its way northward through the bare red hills of Georgia, she gazed from the car-window with the feeling that she had definitely closed the pages of the first book of her life. She stared at the darkening landscape long after the lights in the car were turned on, and wondered what was written on the pages of that second book whose cover she now was lifting.⁠ ⁠…