"They fit in at this moment with one of my only superstitions." He bought her a great handful.

She held them in both hands and gave him her parasol to carry.
"Mine is an inherited superstition, so I will not be ashamed of it," she told him.

"We have always believed that white roses bring happiness, especially if they come accidentally at a critical moment." He glanced behind at the retreating figure of the flower woman.
"If happiness is so easily purchased," he said, "what a pity it is that I did not buy the barrowful!" "It isn't a matter of quantity at all," she assured him.

"One blossom would have been enough and you were really frightfully extravagant." She drifted into silence.

They were walking eastwards now, and before them was the great yellow haze which hung over the sun-enveloped city, a haze which stretched across the whole arc of the heavens, and underneath which were toiling the millions to whom his life was consecrated.