"Glad?" Hubert Varrick's face lighted up, and before he was aware of the action, he had drawn her into his encircling arms, bent his dark, handsome head, and kissed the rosy mouth so dangerously near his own. There was a sound as of a groan, from the door-way, followed by a muffled shriek, and raising his eyes in startled horror, Hubert Varrick saw his lady-mother standing on the threshold, her jeweled hands parting the satin _portieres_. "Who is this girl, and what does this amazing scene mean, Hubert?" cried Mrs. Varrick. Jessie Bain looked at the angry lady in puzzled wonder. She nestled up closer to the handsome, broad-shouldered fellow, murmuring audibly: "Why don't you tell her that I am Jessie Bain, and that you are my best friend on earth?" The lady had heard enough to condemn the girl in her eyes. She advanced toward her, livid with rage, and flung the girl's little white hands back from her son's arm. "Go!" she cried, quivering with rage; "leave this house instantly, or I will call the servants to put you into the street? It's such girls as you that ruin young men!" "Mother," interrupted Hubert, "Jessie Bain must not be sent from this house. If she leaves, I shall go with her!" CHAPTER VII. EVERY YOUNG GIRL WOULD LIKE A LOVER. AND WHY NOT? FOR LOVE IS THE GRANDEST GIFT THE GODS CAN GIVE. A thunder-bolt falling from a clear sky could not have startled the proud Mrs. Varrick more than those crushing words that fell from the lips of her handsome son--"Mother, if you turn Jessie Bain from your door, I go with her!" Mrs. Varrick drew herself up to her full height and advanced into the room like an angry queen. "Hubert," she cried, in a tone that he had never heard from his mother's lips before, "I can make all due allowance for the follies of a young man, but I say this to you: you should never have permitted this girl to cross your mother's threshold." "Give me a chance to speak a few words, mother," he interrupted. "Let me set matters straight. The whole fault is mine, because I have not explained this affair to you before. I put it off from day to day." In a few brief words he explained. In her own mind, quick as a flash, a sudden thought came to her that there was more behind this than had been told to her. She had wondered why Gerelda Northrup, the beauty and the heiress, fled from her handsome son at the very altar. Now she began to think that she might have had a reason for it other than that which the world knew. She was diplomatic; she was too worldly wise to seek to separate them then and there. She said to herself it must be done by strategy.