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 of half of Dade County, for all the guard that was kept.

I compliment--" And now he broke off short in his sneering reproof, as his eyes chanced upon Gavin half way down the stairs.
For a second or more no one spoke or moved.

Claire and her brother had an absurdly shamefaced appearance of two bad children caught in mischief by a stern and much feared teacher.
Into the black depths of the stranger's eyes flickered a sudden glint like that of a striking rattlesnake's.