It was not an unimportant matter that the Duchess of Trent should have held these views. Money is always important, and the Duchess was one of a very large moneyed class who were always ready to open their purses on behalf of their favourite propaganda. The infidel and the sinner were supposed to be reached by the ordinary machinery of the Church, and the Papist and the Jew had been wellnigh abandoned as hopeless, though a few Englishmen of the lower class still prowled through countries like Spain and Portugal, distributing Protestant tracts and increasing the dislike felt for their nation. But the great field for missionary effort, of course, was that section of mankind labelled idolaters or heathen. In the spirit of the hymn which singles out the inoffensive Buddhists of Ceylon to brand them with the epithet vile, the good Duchess firmly believed that to thrust, not merely the theology, but the morals, social customs, marriage institutions, language, manners, and even clothing of her own age and country upon all the peoples of the earth was a Divine injunction to be neglected at her peril. This generous zeal had long been encouraged by the statesmen of the Raj, who saw its possessions widened without the expense of arms. The British Empire resembles no other that has ever existed in having come into existence unconsciously. England has sent forth her outlaws on the shores of distant continents, and they have come back soldiers for her. Her merchants have gone forth seeking merchandise, and realms Alexander sighed for have fallen like ripe fruit into their hands. Her missionaries have Anglicized where they should have Christianized; the bigoted worshippers of Allah and Vishnu imitate the language of Macaulay, and every new church in Africa gives a new cotton-mill to Lancashire. Dr. Coles had a more personal argument in store for the Duchess of Trent. “Surely you cannot be very bigoted against the Legitimists,” he urged. “I thought that all the old Scotch families were Jacobites at heart. And Lord Alistair Stuart is a member of the Guild.” “I have heard my mistress, the Queen, say: ‘I am the greatest Jacobite of them all,’” the Duchess responded. “But I don’t think she ever expected to hear of real Jacobites in the twentieth century. I don’t take your friends very seriously, Dr. Coles, and I dare say my son doesn’t either.” Before the discussion could be carried further Alistair himself came into view. His mother watched him anxiously, half afraid of seeing him accord the same homage to Dr. Coles as the others. But whether because he was wanting in reverence for Armenia, or because he was ashamed to show greater respect to a man than to his own mother, Stuart contented himself with shaking hands with the priest, after he had previously greeted his parent.