“Then you will not marry me, Mildred?”
“No.”
“That is your fixed determination?”
“It is.”
“Ah, well!” he sighed, “I suppose that I had better ‘top my boom’ again?”
“Do what?”
“I mean I had better leave Madeira.”
“Why should you leave Madeira?”
He hesitated a little before replying.
“Well, because if I do not marry you, and still come here, people will talk. They did before, you know.”