Home at midday he avoided his family. He felt a necessity to be alone, to dream and to exult over something that had neither shape nor name. He went into a secret passage.
This secret passage was intimately bound up with his life of adventure. The gardens of Peter's road met at the bottom the gardens of a parallel highway. The two rows were parted by a line of trees and a wall. On the farther side of the wall a thick hedge, planted a few feet from the foot of the wall, had been trained to meet it overhead. After many years it formed a natural green tunnel between the gardens. This tunnel, cleared of dead shoots and leaves, was large enough for Peter and Miranda to crawl from end to end of the wall's foot, and gave them access, after pioneering, to the trees which rose regularly from the midst of the hedge.
Peter to-day climbed into the secret passage, not for adventure but to be alone. The old life seemed very remote. Could he really have believed that the tree against which he leaned was a fortress that had cost him ten thousand men?
A humble bee bustled into the shade and fell, overloaded with pollen. Peter watched it closely. Already he found himself seeing little things—their beauty and a vague impulse in himself to express it.
Peter's indifference to the impertinent call of the things of yesterday was quite wonderful.
"Hullo!" said Mr. Paragon at dinner, "you've been fighting."
"Yes, father," said Peter.
"Goodness gracious!" Mrs. Paragon exclaimed. "Look at Peter's face!"
"Yes, mother," said Peter.
"Tell us about it, my boy," twinkled Mr. Paragon.