he room was empty, except for the ladies of the Committee, two nervously smiling male teachers and the impressive bulk of Superintendent Greer when the Conningtons arrived. Card-table legs skreeked on the bare floor; the air was heavy with wood polish and musk.
Greer advanced, beaming fixedly. "Well, isn't this nice? How are you young folks this warm evening?"
"Oh, we thought we'd be earlier, Mr. Greer," said Moira with pretty vexation. She looked surprisingly schoolgirlish and chic; the lump that was Leo was hardly noticeable unless you caught her in profile. "I'll go right now and help the ladies. There must be something I can still do."
"No, now, we won't hear of it. But I'll tell you what you can do—you can go right over there and say hello to Mrs. Greer. I know she's dying to sit down and have a good chat with you. Go ahead now, don't worry about this husband of yours; I'll take care of him."
Moira receded into a scattering of small shrieks of pleasure, at least half of them arcing across a gap of mutual dislike.
Greer, exhibiting perfect dentures, exhaled Listerine. His pink skin looked not only scrubbed but disinfected; his gold-rimmed glasses belonged in an optometrist's window, and his tropical suit had obviously come straight from the cleaner's. It was impossible to think of Greer unshaven, Greer smoking a cigar, Greer with a smudge of axle grease on his forehead, or Greer making love to his wife.
"Well, sir, this weather—"
"When I think of what this valley was like twenty years ago—"
"At today's prices—"