Ruth looked unusually grave.  Then she answered Bab in a very curious tone.  “I know you have lots of common sense, Bab, dear,” Ruth began.  “But promise me you won’t put any special faith in Peter Dillon.  He is not one bit like Hugh, or Ralph Ewing, or the boys we met at the Major’s house party.  When I meet any one who is such a favorite with everyone I always wonder whether he has any real feelings or whether he is trying to accomplish some end.  I suppose Peter Dillon can’t help striving to be agreeable to everyone.”

Bab laughed a little.  “Why, Ruth,” she protested, “that idea does not sound a bit like you.  You are sweet to everyone yourself, dear, and everyone loves you.  But I do know what you mean about Peter Dillon.  I—­”

“Hello,” cried Mollie’s sweet voice.  She waved a long blue scarf toward Ruth and Bab.  Mollie and Elmer Wilson were standing on the lawn, examining the motto on the sun dial.  It read, “I record none but sunny hours.”

“Let me write down that motto for you, Miss Thurston,” Elmer Wilson suggested.  “I hope you may follow the old sun dial’s example and record none but sunny hours yourself.”

“Ruth!” called Hugh, coming around from the other side of the porch with Peter Dillon.  “Well, here you are, at last!  It is not fair for you two girls to run off together like this.  Harriet has disappeared, and Mrs. Wilson is hiding somewhere.  Do you remember, Ruth, you promised to go with me to see the old Washington deer park.  It has just been restocked with deer.  Won’t you come, too, Bab?”

Barbara shook her head as Hugh and Ruth walked off together.  Bab felt sure that Hugh would like to have a chance to talk with Ruth alone, for they had never ceased to be intimate friends since the early days at Newport.

Peter Dillon stood looking out at the river, whistling softly, “Kathleen Mavourneen.”  It was the song Barbara had first heard him whistle in the drawing-room of Mr. Hamlin’s house.  The young man said nothing, for a few moments, even when he and Bab were alone.  But when Bab came over toward him, Peter smiled.  He had his hat off and he had run his hands through his dark auburn hair.

“I say, Miss Thurston, why can’t you make up your mind to like me?” he questioned.  “Surely you don’t suspect me of dark designs, do you?  You American people are so strange.  Just because I am half a Russian you think I have some sinister purpose in my mind.  I am not an anarchist, and I don’t want to go about trampling on the poor.  I wish you could meet the Russian ambassador.  He is about the most splendid-looking man you ever saw.  I know him, well, you see, because my mother was a distant cousin of his.”

Barbara laughed good-humoredly.  “You seem to be a kind of connecting link between three or four nations—­Russia, America, China.  What are your real duties at your legation?”

Barbara looked at her companion with a real question in her brown eyes—­a question she truly desired to have answered.  She was interested to know what duties an attache performed for his embassy.  Peter, in spite of his frivolities, claimed to be a hard worker.