Why did Elisa cry like an old woman in "The Chrysanthemums"?

I believe that Elisa "cries like an old woman" because when she met with the tinker and offers him some of the shoots of her chrysanthemims, she was not simply just offered the tinker chrysantemum shoots to take with him but she was also offered herself to him. When she discovers that he has thrown the flower shoots away on the side of the road she has to come to the realization that he has not only rejected the flowers and thrown away something very special to her but he has also rejected her, casting her to the side of the road as well.  There is also pain in the fact that he used her (he duped her as he would a simply woman, by using pretty words, flirting with her and pretending to care about what she was saying –something many men would have done during that time–something she thought herself above.)  She is defeat in the knowledge that all men cannot be trusted and therefore she has no way off the lonesome, isolated ranch in Salinas Valley, California. In a moment she is confined by the limitations and confinements she so desperately longed to escape.

This realization leaves her feel more alone and trapped than she ever has. Like and "old woman" who has outlived her prime and usefulness and is left with nothing to do but spend her days awaiting for the slow hand of time to claim her.