Should he become weary of his imposingness, this imposing one....�
There came a scratch at the bottom of the door, a snuffling sound, and a sneeze he knew well. What did Abé San straying about draughty passages by night? But it was no business of his. Let the beast’s owner see to it. He read on:
“Gracefulness belongeth to the generosity of the magnanimous.�
Sada Yacco had joined her lord. Together they burrowed, mutually they snuffed. It was not to be borne. He got up and opened the door. Sada Yacco and Abé San rushed in, their tongues lolling, their eyes bulging with curiosity, and, after a brief excursion round the apartment, which they found small, fawned upon him with a sickening devotion. He scowled on the small black-and-white silky handfuls. Then he yielded to the impulse that plucked at his maxillary muscles and grinned. The little brutes were so painfully sorry for him. They were so clearly under the impression that he was in disgrace.
He got back into bed, and lay there, grinning still, if unwillingly. Sada Yacco, with the forwardness of her sex, scrambled up and sat upon him. Abé San scratched at the coverlet imploringly, until, hoisted upward by the scruff, he, too, gained the desired haven. They had plainly come to stay, so He resigned himself with a sigh, switched off the electric light, and fell asleep before Abé San had turned round the regulation number of times.
Meanwhile She, wakened by the toot of a belated motor-taxi, began to wonder whither the Japanese couple had strayed. Urged and wearied by the unbroken silence, she rose, arrayed herself in her dressing gown, armed herself with a lighted wax taper in a silver candlestick—another wedding present—and began a tour of discovery. The pugs had vanished. Had the maids yielded to their entreaties and taken them in? She listened at two doors; the steady snoring of the sleepers within was unmingled with snort or slumbering whimper of Sada and her mate. Then, returning, she noticed that His dressing-room door was open.
Taper in hand, She went in. He was sound asleep, Sada Yacco sweetly slumbering on the surface covered by daylight with a waistcoat, Abé San curled up, a floss-silk ball, on the pillow by his ear. If he had seen her eyes as she bent over him, shading the light, he would have regained his old opinion of them in the twinkling of the tear She dropped upon His cheek.
Don’t say there are no such things as guardian angels. His woke him up just as She kissed him—the kiss was so light it would not have wakened him by itself.