With irony being a contrast between what a character thinks and what the reader or audience know to be true, the reader must seek the difference between what the characters think and what he/she discerns about them.
Since the girl mentions the hills being like white elephants, she understands their meaning: She tells the man who says he has never seen a white elephant, "No, you wouldn't have." She is the one who expresses doubt about having an abortion. But the young man, who tries to convince the girl to have the operation, says that everything will be all right and the couple can return to their life beforehand. (He "buys" the white elephant, something one thinks has value, but does not.)
The irony of the title, then, is that the man "buys" a white elephant believing that the action under consideration can return him and his girlfriend to their former relationship, but the girl, like the reader, knows they will never be the same, for she turns from the vision of life, fields of grain and trees, and agrees to the man's putting their bags on the "other side of the station."
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