“You’re a trifler, and I decline to discuss the subject seriously with you. You’ve always been a trifler, Alvord—remember, I’ve known you from boyhood, and though you’ve a brilliant brain, you have not utilized it to the best advantage.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” and the handsome face put on a mock penitence, “but I’m too far advanced in years to pull up now.”
“Nonsense! you’re barely thirty! That’s a young man.”
“Not nowadays. They say, after thirty, a man begins to fall to pieces, mentally.”
“Oh, Al, what nonsense!” cried Eunice. “Why, thirty isn’t even far enough along to be called the prime of life!”
“Oh, yes, it is, Eunice, in this day and generation. Nobody thinks a man can do any great creative work after thirty. Inventing, you know, or art or literature—honestly, that’s the attitude now. Isn’t it, Mason?”
Elliott looked serious. “It is an opinion recently expressed by some big man,” he admitted. “But I don’t subscribe to it. Why, I’d be sorry to think I’m a down-and-outer! And I’m in the class with you and Embury.”
“You’re none of you in the sere and yellow,” declared Eunice, laughing at the idea. “Why, even Aunt Abby, in spite of the family record, is about as young as any of us.”
“I know I am,” said the old lady, serenely. “And I know more about my hobby of psychic lore in a minute than you young things ever heard of in all your life! So, don’t attempt to tell me what’s what!”
“That’s right, Miss Ames, you do!” and Mason Elliott looked earnestly at her. “I’m half inclined to go over to your side myself. Will you take me some time to one of your séances—but wait, I only want to go to one where, as you said, the psychic manifestations are perceptible to one or more of the five well-known senses. I don’t want any of this talk of a mysterious sixth sense.”