So he said, “Not that engagements should not be a long story, Mma. It is better, is it not, to be sure of the person you are marrying before you marry. That is what I have always thought.”

Mma Ramotswe suppressed a smile, remembering how she had almost resigned herself to a date never being set for their wedding. If Mma Potokwane owed Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni a great deal for all that he had done for her by way of fixing things, then she herself owed a heavy debt of gratitude to the orphan farm matron for managing to cajole her husband into marriage. But that, she thought, was what so much of life was like: we allowed one another something for some service or favour, sometimes for something done a long time ago, even before our birth; debts to parents, debts to ancestors.

“No,” Mma Ramotswe agreed. “One does not want to marry too quickly. Nor too slowly, perhaps…But Mma Makutsi did not say that Phuti Radiphuti was refusing to name a day. He has done that now.”

Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni looked puzzled. “So what can the problem be? If they have decided on a day—”

“The day is not the issue. It is the bogadi.”

“Ah!” Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni understood now. Bogadi, or lobola, was the dowry that the Radiphutis would have to pay to Mma Makutsi’s people. This would have to be negotiated before the formal agreement between the families would bring the marriage into existence.

After Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni had said, “Ah,” there was a brief silence. Then he continued, firstly by saying “Ah” again, and then, “Eight cattle. Maybe nine.”

Mma Ramotswe appeared to consider this for a moment. “Some people might say six head of cattle for a lady like Mma Makutsi. I am not saying that she is not pretty—I think she is—but—”

“It depends on the light,” said Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni. He spoke seriously, and did not intend his remark to be barbed: it really did depend on the light, he thought. Strong sunlight, especially when it came from such an angle that it glinted off Mma Makutsi’s glasses, was not flattering. But when the light was weaker—at dusk, for example—then her high cheekbones stood out in an interesting way. He had noticed that and had even once mentioned the fact to Mma Ramotswe, who had said nothing, but had looked at him in a way which suggested that he should return to working on his cars. Women did not like men to discuss the appearance of other women, although they liked to do so themselves, he had noticed; and no woman would object to a man’s discussing her own appearance, in complimentary terms of course.