That condition of things must be altered as soon as possible.

When he looked back over the years of driving work through which he had just passed to the years of semi-occupation before them, he shrank from those old conditions in disgust.

Something must be found to which he could enslave himself again.
Liberty was the great delusion--at least for him.
Politics ?--Well, there was the House of Lords, and the possibility of some minor office, when his Admiralty work was done.

And the whole post-war situation was only too breathless.

But for a man who, as soon as he had said Yes, was immediately seized with an insensate desire to look once more at all the reasons which might have induced him to say No, there was no great temptation in politics.