"You haven't any."
His face moved. He put on his glasses carefully, with both hands. "Mrs. Richie, is there any one else? If so, I'll quit. I know you will answer straight; you are not like other women. Is there anybody else? That—that Old Chester doctor who comes to see you once in a while, I understand he's a widower now; wife's just died; and if—"
"There is nobody; never anybody."
"Ah!" he said, triumphantly; then frowned: "If your attachment to your husband makes you say I haven't any chance—but it can't be that."
Her eyes suddenly dilated. "Why not? Why do you say it can't be that?" she said in a frightened voice.
"I somehow got the impression—forgive me if I am saying anything I oughtn't to; but I had kind of an idea that you were not especially happy with him."
She was silent.
"But even if you were," he went on, "it is so many years; I don't mean to offend you, but a woman isn't faithful to a memory for so many years!" he looked at her incredulously; "not even you, I think."
"Such a thing is possible," she told him coldly; she had grown very pale. "But it is not because of—of my husband that I say I shall never marry again."
He interrupted her. "If it isn't a dead man nor a live man that's ahead of me, then it seems to me you can't say I haven't any chance—unless I am personally offensive to you?" There was an almost child-like consternation in his eyes; "am I? Of course I know I am a bear."