with an effort whether a thing had been said or

The joint lives of Ridley and Helen had arrived at this stageof community, and it was often necessary for one or the other torecall with an effort whether a thing had been said or only thought,shared or dreamt in private. At four o'clock in the afternoon twoor three days later Mrs. Ambrose was standing brushing her hair,while her husband was in the dressing-room which opened out of her room,and occasionally, through the cascade of water--he was washinghis face--she caught exclamations, "So it goes on year after year;I wish, I wish, I wish I could make an end of it," to which shepaid no attention. 　　"It's white? Or only brown?" Thus she herself murmured,examining a hair which gleamed suspiciously among the brown. 　　She pulled it out and laid it on the dressing-table. She wascriticising her own appearance, or rather approving of it,standing a little way back from the glass and looking at her ownface with superb pride and melancholy, when her husband appearedin the doorway in his shirt sleeves, his face half obscured by a towel. 　　"You often tell me I don't notice things," he remarked. 　　"Tell me if this is a white hair, then?" she replied. She laidthe hair on his hand. 　　"There's not a white hair on your head," he exclaimed. 　　"Ah, Ridley, I begin to doubt," she sighed; and bowed her headunder his eyes so that he might judge, but the inspection producedonly a kiss where the line of parting ran, and husband and wifethen proceeded to move about the room, casually murmuring. 　　"What was that you were saying?" Helen remarked, after an intervalof conversation which no third person could have understood. 　　"Rachel--you ought to keep an eye upon Rachel," he observed significantly,and Helen, though she went on brushing her hair, looked at him. 　　His observations were apt to be true. 　　"Young gentlemen don't interest themselves in young women's educationwithout a motive," he remarked. 　　"Oh, Hirst," said Helen.