stairs and surveyed the doorway. The second look showed him
the man was clad in a strikingly ornate yachting costume.
Gavin's mind, ever taught to dissect trifles, noted that in
spite of his yachtsman-garb the stranger's face was untanned,
and that his long slender hands with their supersensitive
fingers were as white and well-cared-for as a woman's.

Yachting, in Florida waters at any time of year, means either
a thick coat of tan or an exaggerated sunburn. This yachtsman
had neither.

Scarce taller than a lad of fifteen, yet his slender figure was
sinuous in its every line, and its grace betokened much wiry
strength. His face was that of a man in the early
thirties,--all but his eyes. They looked as old as the
Sphinx's.

He stood for an instant peering into the room, trying to focus
his night-accustomed eyes to the light. Evidently the first
objects he saw clearly were Milo and Claire standing with
their backs to him as they stared upward in blank dismay at
the guest they had thought safely disposed of for the night.

"Well?" queried the man at the door, and at sound of his
silken. bantering voice. brother and sister spun
about in surprise. to face him.

"Well?" he repeated, and now there was a touch of cold rebuke
in the silken tones. "Is this the way you keep a lookout for
the signals? I might very well have walked in on a convention