Arthur turned his attention to the sunset. "Looks uncommonly like rain," he said.
His uncle laughed. "We all have our different compensations," he said. "Yours is games and mine the ability to see things. However, I don't know what we should do without 'em."
"Compensations?" Arthur repeated. "I don't know that I'd thought of games in that light."
"You will in time, if you stay here," was his uncle's answer, given a little sadly.
"But I don't mean to," Arthur asserted.
Joe Kenyon turned reluctantly from the contemplation of the sunset and looked at his nephew. "Then you'd better break away while you have the chance," he said. "I'm a fool to say this to you, but Hubert told me of your talk this afternoon, and I—well, I'm sorry for you."
Arthur raised his eyebrows.
"You're getting drawn in, though you mayn't know it," his uncle continued, "and if you do your life will be wasted. You'll be sucked dry like the rest of us. Damn it, I can't say more than that. I shouldn't have said as much if you hadn't been so decent to Hubert this afternoon."
Arthur's conscience pricked him, and at the same moment he had a warm sense of friendship for his cousin. "Did he tell you that?" he said. "I'm glad he thought so anyhow. I thought I'd been rather rotten to him as a matter of fact."