The Yellow Holly by Fergus Hume — Read

Lord Derrington should have been born Emperor of Ancient Rome or of Modern Russia. He would have made an admirable despot, as he was fairly good-humored when all about him were on their knees serving him. Even then his temper was none of the best. Those who held their own he hated, while the many who gave in to his domineering will received unmerited contempt as their reward. Even at seventy-five the old man's temper had not cooled, and the majority of people avoided him as they would the plague.

Originally he had started life with a sufficiently imperious will, and, thanks to his position as a titled and wealthy orphan, he had been enabled to exercise it at a very early age. The habit of seeing every one terrified of his mere glance grew upon him, and he became unbearable, not only to live with, but even to meet. His wife, after presenting him with two sons, had died gladly, seeing no other way of escaping her tyrant, and the report went that he had browbeaten her out of existence. Derrington would have married again for the sake of his boys, but like Henry VIII., whom he greatly resembled, he could find no one willing to endure his yoke. Consequently he became something of a woman-hater, and entered the political world. In this he met with a certain amount of opposition, which did him good, and might have been trained into a moderately decent member of society but that his reformation was cut short by his being appointed ambassador to a prominent European power.