"These," Warble announced, "are the real Mack Sennett costumes. They are
one-piece bathing suits, I got them from an importer of contraband goods.
You are to put them on in place of your clothes. And please forget that
you are Butterflies and turn into bathing beauties and champion swimmers."

While they were shyly getting into the suits, she donned her own, a little
scalloped apron effect, with cross-strapped sandals, and a silk bandanna
knotted round her head.

She glanced about and saw Big Bill Petticoat beaming with proud glee at
his wife's social success, and looking lovely himself in a black satin
one-piece, with jet shoulder straps.

For a second Warble could see only Petticoat's pink cheeks and perfected
eyebrows. Then she shook off the spell and keyed up.

"We're going to have an obstacle race," she announced, "all over the
house. You must follow me, wherever I go. I shall lead you a dance! And
then I shall come last to the lake in the front hall, and whoever is
nearest me there, will be rewarded."

Yet even as she spoke, she overheard Trymie whispering to Iva Payne, "Yes,
I believe that the new art era into which we are now slipping, will
worship beauty for itself alone, and that art, sublimated by--"

She turned away, sick at heart.

Why bother, her tortured soul cried out. Yet the irrepressible impulse of
reform egged her on and it was a perfectly good egg.