He had towards them all precisely the right attitude; he was not amiable and childish like the Dean, nor pompous like Bentinck-Major, nor sycophantic like Ryle. He did not advance to them but became, as it were, himself one of them, understanding exactly the way that they wanted him. And Joan hated him; she hated his red face and his neatness and his broad chest and his stout legs--everything, everything! She also feared him. She had never before, although for long now she had been conscious of his power, been so deeply aware of his connection with herself. It was as though his round shadow had, on this lovely afternoon, crept forward a little and touched with its dim grey for the first time the Brandon house. "Canon Ronder," Gladys Sampson cried, "come and see what we've done." He moved forward and patted little Betty Callender on the head as he passed. "Are you all right, my dear, and your father?" It appeared that Betty was delighted. Suddenly he saw Joan. "Oh, good evening, Miss Brandon." He altered his tone for her, speaking as though she were an equal. Joan looked at him; colour flamed in her cheeks. She did not reply, and then feeling as though in an instant she would do something quite disgraceful, she slipped from the room. Soon, after gently smiling at the parlourmaid, who was an old friend of hers because she had once been in service at the Brandons, she found herself standing, a little lost and bewildered, at the corner of Green Lane and Orange Street. Lost and bewildered because one emotion after another seemed suddenly to have seized upon her and taken her captive. Lost and bewildered almost as though she had been bewitched, carried off through the shining skies by her captor and then dropped, deserted, left, in some unknown country. Green Lane in the evening light had a fairy air. The stumpy trees on either side with the bright new green of the spring seemed to be concealing lamps within their branches. So thick a glow suffused the air that it was as though strangely coloured fruit, purple and orange and amethyst, hung glittering against the pale yellow sky, and the road running up the hill was like pale wax. On the other side Orange Street tumbled pell-mell into the roofs of the town. The monument of the fierce Georgian citizen near which Joan was standing guarded with a benevolent devotion the little city whose lights, stealing now upon the air, sprinkled the evening sky with a jewelled haze. No sound broke the peace; no one came nor went; only the trees of the Lane moved and stirred very faintly as though assuring the girl of their friendly company.