I got dutched by a ~75yo woman!

I am a well-dressed, polite, 27-year old man! And I'm not even fat or short!

There's a sweet old lady that is a friend of my mom's and she sends us homemade peanut butter brittle every Christmas. I normally just send a thank you card but this year I called her and she was overjoyed, we talked for about half an hour. I called her again recently to see if she would be attending the women's march in my city. She's busy that day, but invited me to her favorite restaurant for lunch. But when the waitress showed up she asked to separate the orders. We did go on to have a great conversation, over an hour, she's so earnest and adorable. I know this wasn't exactly a "seeking arrangements" situation but she's lonely and I'm broke, I thought that was the subtext here. Is my assessment wrong? I'm balding but I thought I wore it well. If I were a 27-year old woman and an old man did this to me I'd kilometers/second. How am I supposed to flirt with all the women at the march with my ego in shambles? I'm supposed to get them to sign up for an activist organization, the whole reason they send me in the first place is because I'm good at flirting with strangers.

Anyways my cope is that maybe she was just so excited that she didn't read the subtext. Or maybe her generation is used to the man always paying so to her splitting the bill with a young man seems fair. I want to hang out with her more but I'm not paying for overpriced Mexican food again, how do I get the point across without being explicit?

EDIT: this is not actually a romantic thing I'm just being dramatic, I thought it was just normal for older people to treat young broke people in this kind of situation. I've never paid when bosses or mentor figures have taken me out, even when I try to insist.