"Ah."
"I've made good. My record as a woman sleuth is excellent. I make more money in a week—when I'm working—than you do in a year. Unless—" She paused abruptly and gave him a queer look.
"Unless it's true that you're coining money in a way that's not legal."
He stood motionless before her, reading her face. She returned his scrutiny with interest. Neither resumed the conversation for a time. Finally the old man sank back into his chair.
"A female detective," said he, a little bitterly, "is still—a female."
"And likewise a detective. I know more about you, Dad, than you think," she asserted, in an easy, composed tone that it seemed impossible to disturb. "You need looking after, just at this juncture, and as I've been granted a vacation I ran up here to look after you."
"In what way, Nan?"
"We'll talk that over later. There isn't much love lost between us, more's the pity. You've always thought more of your infernal 'Cause' than of your daughter. But we're Craggs, both of us, and it's the Cragg custom to stand by the family."
It struck him as curious that Ingua had repeated almost those very words earlier that same evening. He had never taught them the Cragg motto, "Stand Fast," that he could remember, yet both Nan and her child were loyal to the code. Was he loyal, too? Had he stood by Nan in the past, and Ingua in the present, as a Cragg should do?
His face was a bit haggard as he sat in his chair and faced his frank-spoken daughter, whose clear eyes did not waver before his questioning gaze.