We would buy, and behold, we must pay.
Then the lights go out, the voices stop, and only the dark tumultuous streets surround us, and the grime of life is ours again.

Whereupon we go heavily to hard beds of despair, having eaten the cake we bought, and now must pay for unto Penalty, the dark inordinate creditor.

And anon the morning comes, and then, at last, the evening when the triste bazaars open again, and the strong of heart and nerve move not from their doorways, but sit still in the dusk to watch the grim world go by.

But mostly they hurry out to the bazaars once more, answering to the fevered call: "Buy--buy--buy--buy--buy!" And again they pay the price: and so on to the last foreclosure and the immitigable end.
One of the two standing in the door of the ruined chapel on the Ecrehos had the nature of those who buy but once and pay the price but once; the other was of those who keep open accounts in the markets of life.

The one was the woman and the other was the man.
There was nothing conventional in their greeting.