Dickson's mind was a chaos of feelings, all of them unpleasant.

He had run up against something which he violently, blindly detested, and the trouble was that he could not tell why.

It was all perfectly absurd, for why on earth should an ugly house, some overgrown trees, and a couple of ill-favoured servants so malignly affect him?
Yet this was the fact; he had strayed out of Arcady into a sphere that filled him with revolt and a nameless fear.

Never in his experience had he felt like this, this foolish childish panic which took all the colour and zest out of life.

He tried to laugh at himself but failed.