"Put what on, Mother Barbançon?"
"Why, the cravat, monsieur."
"On me? The deuce take me, if—"
But a meaning look from Olivier made the old officer realise how much chagrin he would cause the worthy housekeeper by refusing to don her gift.
On the other hand, the good man had never worn a white cravat in his life, and fairly shuddered at the idea of such a piece of neck-gear.
But his natural kindness of heart conquered, and, smothering a sigh, he yielded his neck to Madame Barbançon, saying, in order to complete his exclamation in a manner that would be more flattering to his housekeeper:
"I meant to say, the deuce take me if I refuse, Mother Barbançon, but it is much too fine for me."
"Nothing can be too fine for such an occasion as this, monsieur," said the housekeeper, carefully adjusting the cravat. "It is a great pity that you haven't something better to wear than that old blue coat you've had at least seven years, but with your cross of the Legion of Honour and this handsome cravat,"—pulling out the ends of the cravat until they looked like two immense rabbits' ears, and then eying her work complacently,—"you have no cause to blush for your appearance. Ah, monsieur," she added, stepping back a little to see the effect better, "it makes you look twenty years younger, doesn't it, M. Olivier? Besides, it is so—so stylish—it makes you look like a notary, indeed it does."
The poor commander, with his neck imprisoned in the huge cravat that reached up to the middle of his cheeks, turned and looked in the little mirror that hung over the mantel in his bedroom, and it must be confessed that the effect was really very becoming.
"It's a pity it prevents me from turning my head," he said to himself, "but, as Mother Barbançon says, it is rather becoming—and decidedly professional looking," he added, with just the least bit of foppishness.