Mimi forgot the days of her misery. The years spent in Atlanta became hazy and unreal in the eager happiness of her new life. Again she had the feeling that the things which had distressed her so had never really happened—that they were either the phantasmagoria of a nightmare or the sorrows of an existence she had lived prior to this life. Her stepmother she rarely thought of, she had returned to Chicago and there had married again. The Hunters she equally had removed from her thoughts. When she did think of them or of Carl they seemed unreal, like apparitions of an indistinctly remembered dream. She had completely recovered from even her hatred of and contempt for Carl. In the light of her life since she had left Atlanta, she saw him now even more clearly as the weak individual he was. She was amused now when she remembered how devotedly, how passionately she had loved him during those short months. “I was a silly little fool then,” she laughed amusedly at herself when she did remember. The entire episode seemed to her now a rather cheap and worthless thing. The only comfort she could extract from it was the satisfaction that she had not succumbed to a dishonest compromise.
Even her years in Philadelphia began to fade into the land of half-remembered, half-forgotten things. She occasionally corresponded with the Mannings but as the months sped by she found her interest lessening even in this contact with the old couple who had been so kind to her. The one link to both of these episodes in her life, for she now looked upon them only as episodes, was Petit Jean, and he served as a link and as the centre of all her hopes for the future. Under the skilful guidance of her aunt she had thrown off her moroseness and spells of despondency and was working indefatigably towards securing all the things which would bring happiness to her and Jean.