Nevertheless, when she left the train at Charing Cross, and took a hansom mechanically to drive to the hotel, her brain busied itself with a fresh problem, which was yet an old one, the question of preventing an engagement between Usk and Félicia. Such an engagement would put an end once for all to her ambitious schemes for Félicia’s future, which seemed perfectly feasible in the light of the revelations of the night before. Not that either Maimie or Félicia herself would have cared much for the engagement, had there been a prospect of a more brilliant alliance, but it would give Mr Steinherz a vantage-ground of which he would make full use. Once Félicia was engaged, he would see that the engagement was fulfilled. He would hurry on the marriage, and never relax his vigilance until his daughter had become Viscountess Usk, and Félicia, in her present mood, would offer no opposition. The prospect of escaping from his tutelage, and feeling that she was her own mistress (Usk did not count), was far more attractive to her than Maimie’s lofty hopes. It seemed that there was no help for it, and Maimie decided reluctantly to bow to circumstances, and make herself so agreeable to Usk that he could not but approve of her friendship with Félicia. As she came to this decision, she was startled by meeting Usk and Mr Steinherz face to face. Her driver was trying to cross Oxford Street in the direction of Bloomsbury, but there was a block in the traffic, and an inexorable policeman detained the hansom close to one of those islands of refuge on which strange groups assemble by force of circumstances. Here stood Mr Steinherz and Usk, unable to penetrate the solid phalanx of vehicles which confronted them, and waiting with what patience they might while the policeman marshalled a train of old ladies and country cousins in readiness for a break in the line. They were the last people Maimie would have chosen to meet at such a moment, when that dreadful certificate seemed to be burning in her pocket. “You are out pretty early, Maimie,” said Mr Steinherz. “I----I came out on an errand for Félicia, way down in the City,” stammered Maimie, remembering for the first time that the errand had never been performed. “You should have mailed the order. I don’t choose to have you running around for Félicia. You look just tired out.” “I wish you had been with us just now, Miss Logan,” said Usk, changing the subject hastily, either on account of Maimie’s evident embarrassment or because he could not bear to hear Félicia blamed. “We came across the Archduke Ferdinand Joachim and an aide-de-camp poking about Trafalgar Square in mufti. Wasn’t it a good thing I had studied him so long yesterday, so that I could point him out to Mr Steinherz? But I did wish you and Miss Steinherz were there.”