Blaze emerged, blinking. He was dusty and perspiring.
"Hello, Miz Austin!" he saluted her with a poor assumption of breeziness. "I was fixin' some harness, but I'm right glad to see you."
Alaire regarded him quizzically. "What made you hide?" she asked.
"Hide? Who, me?"
"I saw you dodge in here like a—gopher."
Blaze confessed. "I reckon I've got the willies. Every woman I see looks like that dam' dressmaker."
"Paloma was telling me about you. Why do you hate her so?"
"I don't know's I hate her, but her and her husband have put a jinx on me. They're the worst people I ever see, Miz Austin."
"You don't really believe in such things?"
Blaze dusted off a seat for his visitor, saying: "I never did till lately, but now I'm worse than a plantation nigger. I tell you there's things in this world we don't sabe. I wish you'd get Paloma to fire her. I've tried and failed. I wish you'd tell her those dresses are rotten."