Ferroll had received a
military education; but when that education was completed, he found but
a feeble prospect of his acquirements being called into action. It
was believed that the age of great wars had ceased, and that even
revolutions were for the future to be controlled by diplomacy. As he was
a man of an original, not to say eccentric, turn of mind, the Count
of Ferroll was not contented with the resources and distraction of his
second-rate capital. He was an eminent sportsman, and, for some time,
took refuge and found excitement in the breadth of his dark forests, and
in the formation of a stud, which had already become celebrated. But all
this time, even in the excitement of the chase, and in the raising of
his rare-breed steeds, the Count of Ferroll might be said to have been
brooding over the position of what he could scarcely call his country,
but rather an aggregation of lands baptized by protocols, and christened
and consolidated by treaties which he looked upon as eminently
untrustworthy. One day he surprised his sovereign, with whom he was
a favourite, by requesting to be appointed to the legation at London,
which was vacant. The appointment was at once made, and the Count of
Ferroll had now been two years at the Court of St. James'.

The Count of Ferroll was a favourite in English society, for he
possessed every quality which there conduces to success. He was of great
family and of distinguished appearance, munificent and singularly frank;
was a dead-shot, and the boldest of riders, with horses which were the
admiration alike of Melton and Newmarket. The ladies also approved of
him, for he was a consummate waltzer, and mixed with a badinage gaily
cynical a tone that could be tender and a bewitching smile.

But his great friend was Lady Montfort. He told her everything, and
consulted her on everything; and though he rarely praised anybody, it
had reached her ears that the Count of Ferroll had said more than once
that she was a greater woman than Louise of Savoy or the Duchesse de
Longueville.

There was a slight rustling in the room. A gentleman had entered and
glided into his unoccupied chair, which his valet had guarded. "I fear I
am not in time for an oyster," said Lord Montfort to his neighbour.

The gentleman who had first spoken to Endymion was the secretary of Lord
Montfort; then there was a great genius who was projecting a suspension
bridge over the Tyne, and that was in Lord Montfort's count