They were sitting together in the garden, Mr. Paragon smoking a pipe after supper. It was warm and quiet, with occasional light noises from the wood and the near houses. It was Mr. Paragon's moment of peace—a time for minor meditations, softened by the stars and the flowers, equally his by right of conquest.
Mrs. Paragon sighed. She divined a coming rift between herself and Peter.
"He is very young," she protested.
"He was always older than his years," said Mr. Paragon; and, after a silence, he added: "Don't lose touch with the boy, Mary. We have got to help him over these discoveries. Life's too fine to be picked up anyhow."
"It's not easy to keep with the young. There's so much to understand."
Mrs. Paragon said this a little sadly, and Mr. Paragon felt bound to comfort her.
"Peter's a good boy," he said.
Meantime Peter in his attic was not asleep. It was his habit, shut in his room for the night, to climb through the skylight, and sit upon a flat and cozy space of the roof by the warm chimney. There he was frequently joined by Miranda from the attic of the next house.
But Peter sat this evening at the window. The garden was quick with faint play of the wind; and Peter's ears were sensitive to small noises of the trees.
There was a faint tapping upon the wall. Peter was instantly alert, and as instantly amazed at the effect upon himself of this familiar signal. He had heard it a hundred times. It was thus that he and Miranda communicated with one another when they went up to their nook by the chimney.