“Because I cannot say what I want.”
“Try,” I said.
“No, it is no use now. What have you been buying?”
I gave her a list of my purchases, and she went over them, as it seemed to me, a little sadly. “You have not bought the best things,” she said. “But they will cost you all that you have here, one gardenia and a sprig of maidenhair.”
“Is that flower really worth more than the two sovereigns that I offered you?”
“Yes, we have none here, and flowers are the only purity on your earth.”
“But this will die in an hour.”
“No,” she said, “it would have died there, but here it will never die.” As I laid it on the counter I noticed that even the maidenhair was quite fresh.
“If I had only known,” I said, “I would have loaded my cab with flowers. Can I not come back again?”
“No—never.”