Mma Makutsi looked at Phuti admiringly. She was the creative one in the marriage, of course—Phuti’s concerns being furniture and cattle and things of that nature—but this demonstrated an imaginative ability that might perhaps be coaxed out further. But not too far. “That would be a very good name,” she said. “I could be the Principal, and you could be in charge of the courses. Mma Ramotswe could be in charge of making tea. And we’d use your book as the set book.”

Clovis Andersen looked wistful. “That would be very good, Mma. But I’m afraid …”

It would be so easy to stay. After all, there was nothing to take him back, and he could spend the rest of his days with these agreeable people, listening to Mma Ramotswe, doing the same small, everyday things that he filled his days with at home, but doing them here, in this place that he was gradually discovering he loved. Could one fall in love with a whole country—just like that? He wondered about that.

“We can think about it,” said Mma Makutsi. “It’s best to think about these things.”

“Yes,” said Clovis Andersen, a bit reluctantly. Things you thought about—wild, irresponsible things like setting up the Limpopo Academy of Private Detection—and never did. Good sense intervened; good sense and responsibility and perhaps also sheer inertia. Yet you could dream about them; you could keep an idea alive, filed away with all those other wonderful, foolish ideas.

At the end of the meal, Phuti ran Clovis Andersen back to his friend’s house. Mma Makutsi came to keep Phuti company on the way home, and it was on this journey, after they had dropped off their guest, that she and Phuti discussed him.

“I like him very much,” said Phuti. “He is a kind man, Mma.”

“Yes,” said Mma Makutsi. “But there is something sad about him, isn’t there? He became sadder as the evening wore on, I think.”

“Perhaps it is because he writes books,” offered Phuti. “There are very sad-looking photographs of authors on the covers of their books. Perhaps they are all sad.

“He is a widower, isn’t he?” asked Phuti Radiphuti. “Perhaps he’s missing his late wife.” He almost said, As I would miss you, Grace, if you became late. But he did not say this. They were just starting their life together, and it was premature to reflect on how it would feel if one of them were to go. And he was sure that it would not happen; not for a long time, until they had been married for years and years and their children were married too and they were ready to go. That is what he hoped, as all of us who have found somebody to ease the pain of the world must hope, for ourselves, and for others.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

MMA RAMOTSWE, I HAVE A CONFESSION TO MAKE