CHAPTER XVI.
GATHERING CLOUDS.
Henley week is said to be fine once in eight years, so presumably it was an eighth year, for the weather was perfect.
Captain Preston, an old blue, had made a point of attending the historic regatta ever since he had been at school; then had come a gap, due to the war, and then the regatta had been once more held.
To celebrate the event, also because he thought Yootha would like it, Preston had this year rented a houseboat which he kept moored near Maidenhead. Several times before they were engaged Yootha had spent a day with him on this boat, though he had not even then made up his mind to propose to her. But now the boat was moored at Henley, for the regatta week, and he had asked a few of his friends to come and lunch on board any day they felt inclined to. It was his intention then to announce his engagement, and to present them to his future wife.
None of his friends, however, put in an appearance. Some telegraphed their inability at the last moment to get out of town; others stayed away without sending an excuse.
Preston was surprised.
“Curious,” he said thoughtfully, as he shook the ashes out of his pipe about lunch time on the second day of the regatta. “I thought some of them would turn up to-day. Cooper and Atherton are down here, I know, because I saw them in a punt together half an hour ago.”
Yootha, lying back near him in a deck chair, partly concealed by the overhead awning, did not reply.
“You seem silent to-day, my darling,” he said after a pause. “Is anything the matter?”