"Sid!" said Jean, hurriedly. "Sidney!"
"Just a moment, Jean," said her husband, without glancing at her. "You will do it now, or have father punish you to make you do it," he said to the boy. "Father can't have boys here who don't obey, you know. Every one obeys. Soldiers have to, engineers have to, even animals have to. Are you going to do what mother told you to?"
"No," said little Peter. "I said I wouldn't, and now I won't!"
"He is hot and excited now," said Jean, quickly, in French, "but I'll take him upstairs and quiet him down. He'll come to his senses. Leave him to me, dear!"
"Much the wisest thing to do, Sidney," supplemented Mrs. Moore, in the same tongue.
"Certainly!" said his father, coldly. "Give him time. Let him understand that if he doesn't obey, it means no circus. That's reasonable, I think, Jean?"
"Oh, perfectly! Perfectly!" Mrs. Carolan assented nervously. Nothing more was said as she took the boy's hand and led him away. The others heard Peter chatting cheerfully as he mounted the stairway a moment later.
"The boys and I will go down and look at Nellie's puppies," said Mrs. Moore, acutely uncomfortable.
Her host muttered something about closing his mail.
"But are we going to the circus?" fretted little George Moore. His mother hardly heard him.