His face had a classic beauty which, on second glance, was marred by an almost snakelike aspect of the small black eyes and a sinister smile which seemed to hover eternally around the thin lips.

His whole bearing suggested something serpentine in its grace and a smoothly half-jesting deadliness.
So much the first glimpse told Brice as he stood there on the 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.