presented it to her--on bended knees!

"She confessed that she could love me, despite my ugliness, this white
orchid of the plains. Peter Moore, do not look at me. You can
believe--if you do not look. She kissed me--on my lips! Again she
said she loved me. Had I been a thousand times uglier, she would have
loved me a thousand times more passionately! Heaven had joined us.
And I forgave my enemies, renewed my vows at the wheel, and blessed
every virgin star!

"Love had come to me at last! Me--the most hideous in all of Asia.
And I believed her. What would you have done, Peter Moore--you who
know so well the heart of woman? Never mind. I believed everything.

"We lingered in Mangalore. But I did not know then of the Singhalese
merchant--the trader who owned three miserable camels. He possessed
not handsomeness, but the romantic glamour which you possess, Peter the
Brazen! Reveling in my love, I was as blind as these imbeciles in my
mines. Our child was born.

"She could have taken more, had she not been so lovestruck. She could
have had my all--my gems, my pearls, and rubies, and diamonds, more
colossal than the treasure of any raja--my mines which dripped with the
precious mercury!

"Yet she stole only my gold which was convenient, and went out into the
starlit night with the Singhalese trader, to share the romance of the
blinding desert--the Singhalese trader, a man of no caste at all!
Love? That was my love!"

The hideous, gray face retreated behind talons as though to blot out
the thought of that ancient betrayal. When the talons again dropped
down, the dead softness of the face was replaced by the former sneer.

This change was quite shocking.

The beast was laughing harshly. "If I could not have love, I could at
least have hate! I have hated more passionately than any man has ever
loved!"

Peter said nothing to this, although the gray lips closed and the green
eyes looked at him expectantly, almost demanding comment. Surely this
creature was insane, with his room of the green death, his wild tales
of love of a Punjab maiden, of wholesale hate.

The Gray Dragon seemed irritated. "What have you to say now?"

"I was only wondering," said Peter, as if suddenly tired, "when that
pistol is to explode at my back."

"There is yet time," muttered his host. "No man has yet left this room
in contempt of me! Can you believe I have lied?" he snarled. "Why,
you fool!" he croaked. "I will te