"But good gracious! if I'm to be at your dinner on time, I've got to be hurrying home, don't you think? Look at that darkening sky! By the way, I hope Edith Symmes will not spoil the effect of everything with some terrible gown. Horace Penfield says that he has seen it and that it is the most awful thing she has yet perpetrated."
Hayden could not forbear laughing. "Horace misled you," he said, "he told us all about it at the luncheon yesterday. He had just been at her dressmaker's with her to look at it. He says it is really the most atrocious thing he has ever seen; but," triumphantly, "it will not grace my humble dinner. It is being saved for a far more important occasion—your ball."
"Oh, my goodness!" gasped Bea. "Well," firmly, "I shall put a flea in Edith's ear. She must call a halt. She is simply letting that crazy imagination of hers run rampant. I shall speak to her to‑night."
CHAPTER XV
During the ten days allowed her for preparation Kitty continued charmed with Hayden's idea of a butterfly dinner. It suited her volatile fancy. Her enthusiasm remained at high pitch, and she exerted herself to the utmost in behalf of her favorite cousin. As a consequence, although she made a pretense of consulting Hayden about the various arrangements, the final results were almost as much of a surprise to him as to the rest of the guests, and as he walked through his rooms at the last moment he admitted to himself that Kitty really had surpassed herself.
Yellow and violet orchids fluttered everywhere, carrying out the butterfly effect; and while he stood admiring their airy and unsubstantial grace, Kitty floated in followed by Hampton, thin and kindly, with more of an expression of interest than he usually wore.
"Why, Kitty," cried Hayden, shaking hands with Hampton, "you look exactly like a butterfly, a lovely little blue butterfly attracted here by the flowers."
"But that is what I am," Kitty answered him triumphantly. "A blue butterfly. Don't you see my long wing‑sleeves? And look at the blue butterflies in my hair! Oh," as Mrs. Habersham came in, "here is Bea. Isn't she gorgeous?"