A Common Enemy

Excerpt from A Common Enemy

The Campion family were all at home that evening waiting for the Alert signal. The two boys, home from the holidays, were playing chess with an effect of deep absorption, partly due to the desire to avoid their father's attention. He was a very much better player than either of them, and although when he came and overlooked their game he maintained a scrupulous silence, they became uncomfortable and self-conscious when he watched them, afraid that they might be missing all sorts of chances that he alone could see, and was longing to point out to them. He had a way of audibly catching his breath when he saw them commit What from his point of view was a ghastly bloomer of some kind. Arthur, who was nearly eighteen, was more sensitive to this silent criticism than his younger brother, Nick. Arthur was a hard-working and quite an able boy, but he liked to do things in his own way. He was naturally conservative in his tastes and methods, and had a great respect for tradition. Nick was of a very different habit, too versatile according to his school reports, quick to take up what seemed to him interesting sug gestions, no matter from What source they came. He was already a better chess-player than his brother, but lost many games to him through a search for the brilliant combination, in the course of which he was liable to lose a piece without sufficient compensation in position, and be Worn down by Arthur's steady safety play.