Some of the
stall-keepers had little glass cases, and in these there was room only
for the Gloire de Dijons and the La Frances and the velvety Jacks, the
rest over-ran the tables and the floor in anything that would hold them.
The place rioted with the joy and the passion of roses, for buying and
selling. There were other flowers, nasturtiums, cornbottles, mignonette,
but they had a diminished, insignificant look in their tied-up bunches
beside the triumph of the roses. Further on, beyond the cage of the
money-changer, the country people were hoarse with crying their
vegetables, in two green rows, and beyond that, where the jostling crowd
divided, shone a glimpse of oranges and pomegranates. In this part there
were many comers and goers, lean Mussulman table servants and fat
Eurasian ladies who kept boarding-houses, Armenian women with
embroidered shawls drawn over their heads, sailors of the port. They
came to pass that way, through the sweetness of it, and this made a
coign of vantage for the men with trays, who were very persecuting
there. Lindsay and Alicia stood together beside the roses, her hands
were deep in them; he perceived with pleasure that their glow was
reflected in her face.
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