Having exhausted the aviation news, Mrs. Darling turned to the American cables. Everything American now held for her a magnified interest. Presently she slapped the page out flatter and interestedly bent her head closer.
"Fancy!" she exclaimed a moment later, sitting up straight. "He's been sentenced to fifteen years' imprisonment."
"Your David?" asked the duchess indifferently.
"Certainly not. He's poor but honest. J. Sprague Ramsay, of Chicago, the multimillionaire banker, whose wife and daughter I knew in India. I don't in the least understand it—it's for lending himself money from his own banks or something. It's too bad. Poor, poor Sibylla. And Jane was just coming to a marriageable age. It will spoil all her chances."
"It should be a lesson to you, Nina. I should think you'd feel disgraced. You associated with the family of a convict. You must curb your indiscriminate freedom. You must, really."
"Pooh!" cried her great-niece. "The Ramsays were charming. It wasn't their fault that J. Sprague borrowed more than he had a right to."
Her great-aunt's disapproval of Americans in general and of the American aviator in particular, had the usual effect of disapproval when brought to bear on an independent spirit. It whetted Nina's ardor for the daring and intrepid David Pierson.
She not only attended the meetings at which he flew, but on repeated occasions she flew with him. Her infatuation was the talk of her friends and her enemies.
As a matter of fact the American was by no means a bad sort. He came of good, honest stock, was fairly well educated, and possessed a comfortable income from Kentucky tobacco plantations, which he had inherited.
With the coming of autumn, however, the inevitable happened. He proposed marriage to the young widow who had led him to believe he had only to ask to be given. And Nina refused him flatly.