But I was restrained by a most curious
impulse." He looked at Peter eagerly.

"You have perplexed, almost fascinated me. Tell me first, what was
your power over Romola Borria?"

Peter only grunted, angrily astonished.

"Wait!" cautioned the curling lips. "I am not ridiculing you. I am
keenly desirous of knowing." He frowned, pondering. "I will tell you
about that woman. Romola Borria was sent to me, and I employed her.
For certain difficult tasks she was all that I desired--more beautiful
than sunset on the Tibetan snow--a glorious woman, yet as cold, as
unfriendly as that same snow. Her spirit was one of ice, yet fire.

"And her heart was stone--or snow also. I sent her directly to
communicate a certain thing to you--to kill you in the event that you
declined. Shall I tell you how many men she has put out of the way at
my bidding before and after she met you? No matter.

"Romola Borria was proof against love. No man was created for her to
love. Yet that snowy heart melted, that precious coldness vanished,
when she met--Peter Moore!"

The Gray Dragon paused, and the cessation of his metallic voice, the
quick relinquishing of the evil glint in his small, green eyes, left
Peter with a deeper feeling of revulsion than previously. It had been
his imaginative belief that the Gray Dragon was utterly without human
traits; yet he possessed that lowest of them all, a bestial curiosity.

"I can all but read your thoughts," he went on, lidding his green eyes
a number of times. "You are saying what my victims invariably say when
I grant them these rare audiences before they die. Over and over you
are repeating--'Beast! Beast! Beast!' Is that not true?"

"That is absolutely true!"

Malice seemed to hover about the glittering green eyes, and was gone at
once. "Peter Moore, to gaze at you is like gazing into a crystal. In
you I witness that supreme quality which was denied me in my youth. I
can have anything in the world but that supreme, that sublime quality.
I can buy anything in the world but that." The voice stopped.

Peter shifted his glance momentarily to the armed attendants who
guarded this evil life. An inner whisper counseled him: "Not yet! Not
yet! There is time!"

"Yet there is a chance that I may reconsider; that I may permit you to
continue to live--perhaps in the mines. But certainly, Peter the
foolish, you must not yield to that present impulse. Of course, you
are armed. But