The change that made him different was
invisible.
Chapter VI
The change in Ramsey was invisible, and yet something must have been
seen, for everyone appeared to take it for granted that he was to
sit next to Milla at the pastoral meal. She herself understood it,
evidently, for she drew in her puckered skirts and without any words
make a place for him beside her as he driftingly approached her,
affecting to whistle and keeping his eyes on the foliage overhead. He
still looked upward, even in the act of sitting down.
"Squirrel or something," he said, feebly, as if in explanation.
"Where?" Milla asked.
"Up there on a branch." He accepted a plate from her (she had provided
herself with an extra one), but he did not look at it or her. "I'm not
just exactly sure it's a squirrel," he said. "Kind of hard to make out
exactly what it is." He continued to keep his eyes aloft, because he
imagined that all of the class were looking at him and Milla, and he
felt unable to meet such publicity. It was to him as if the whole United
States had been scandalized to attention by this act of his in going
to sit beside Milla; he gazed upward so long that his eyeballs became
sensitive under the strain.
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