“I wonder why he married her,” Mma Makutsi went on. “Do you think that he asked her, or did she ask him?” She paused as she mulled over the possibilities. “Maybe she even ordered him to marry her. Do you think that happened, Mma?”

Mma Ramotswe pursed her lips. It was difficult not to smile when Mma Makutsi got going on remarks like this, but she knew that she should not. It was none of Mma Makutsi’s business how Rra Potokwane had proposed to Mma Potokwane; such things were the private business of man and wife and people had no right to pry into such areas. Mind you, Mma Makutsi might not be far wrong; she could just imagine Mma Potokwane instructing her mild, rather timid husband to marry her or face some unnamed unpleasant consequences.

“I wonder what their bed is like,” went on Mma Makutsi. “I can just see their bedroom, can’t you?—with her taking up most of the space on the bed and leaving only a few inches at the edge for him. Maybe he sleeps on the floor next to the bed. And then she wakes up and thinks: Where on earth did I put my husband? Do you think that is what happens, Mma Ramotswe?”

This was overstepping the mark. Mma Ramotswe did not like to speculate on the bedrooms, or beds, of others. That was private. “You mustn’t talk like that,” she said. “It is not funny.”

“But you are smiling,” Mma Makutsi said. “I can see that you are trying not to smile, but you are.”

Mma Ramotswe had changed the subject at this point, but at home that evening she had narrated the conversation to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni and he had laughed. “Those two just can’t get on,” he said. “They are really the same, under the skin. In ten years’ time, Mma Makutsi will be just like her. She has been ordering the apprentices around—for practice. Soon she will move on to Mr. Phuti Radiphuti. Once they are married, then the ordering about will begin.” He looked at Mma Ramotswe. “Not all men are fools, you know, Mma. We know the plans that you women have for us.”