By this time they were indoors.

Mrs.
Swancourt, to whom match-making by any honest means was meat and drink, had now a little scheme of that nature concerning this pair.

The morning-room, in which they both expected to find her, was empty; the old lady having, for the above reason, vacated it by the second door as they entered by the first.
Knight went to the chimney-piece, and carelessly surveyed two portraits on ivory.
'Though these pink ladies had very rudimentary features, judging by what I see here,' he observed, 'they had unquestionably beautiful heads of hair.' 'Yes; and that is everything,' said Elfride, possibly conscious of her own, possibly not.
'Not everything; though a great deal, certainly.' 'Which colour do you like best ?' she ventured to ask.
'More depends on its abundance than on its colour.' 'Abundances being equal, may I inquire your favourite colour ?' 'Dark.' 'I mean for women,' she said, with the minutest fall of countenance, and a hope that she had been misunderstood.
'So do I,' Knight replied.
It was impossible for any man not to know the colour of Elfride's hair.
In women who wear it plainly such a feature may be overlooked by men not given to ocular intentness.

But hers was always in the way.

You saw her hair as far as you could see her sex, and knew that it was the palest brown.