“What for?” she questioned.
“Why, you know.” He seemed surprised that she should ask. “At supper, for helping me out. I mean for sort of bringing me into things. After what you did, they saw I was there. But—you know,” he broke off.
“Yes, I know,” she answered.
“You’ve known right from the first,” he said, daring to speak in the half obscuring dark. “When you’re there, I always know you understand. She—I mean—” he cut himself off; “some people seem to sort of strangle me. I don’t know how it is, but someway, I just can’t get to the surface with them.”
“Can’t get to the surface?” she asked quickly.
“Yes. I mean, to get into the world at all. It was like I wasn’t all in; they seem to slam a door in my face, an’ squeeze me out. I’m only half alive with them. They go right along as though I wasn’t there. I don’t know what it is.” He paused uncertainly, as though trying to blaze a pathway of words through a maze of difficult and heretofore unexpressed thoughts. “I reckon it’s my fault someway—I don’t know—or maybe it’s because I’m insignificant-looking an’ small—though I’m really only a little bit below average height—but folks go along an’ don’t even seem to see me.”
“I know: I understand,” she breathed.
“Yes,” he whispered sharply, “you do know. That’s just it. You’ve understood right from the first! There was never anybody else who ever did.”
“It’s—it’s the same with me,” she confessed, a thrill of emotion in her voice. “That’s why I understand. Some folks just choke me—an’ I—someway, I don’t know how to stand up against them.”
“Ain’t that funny?” He spoke wonderingly. “Ain’t it funny? I thought I was the only one in the world that way.”