That is a society editor, sitting there elegantly dressed, with his
legs crossed in that indolent way, observing the clothes the ladies
wear, so that he can describe them for his paper and make them out
finer than they are and get bribes for it and become wealthy. That
flower which he is wearing in his buttonhole is a rose—a white rose, a
York rose—and will serve to remind us of the War of the Roses, and that
the white one was the winning color when Edward got the throne and
dispossessed the Lancastrian dynasty.