She waited for Mma Makutsi to enlarge on her description, but she sat at her desk, busying herself with a sheaf of garage bills. So she returned to her cash book.

“He has a very nice smile, too,” Mma Makutsi suddenly added. “That is one of the nice things about him.”

“Oh yes?” said Mma Ramotswe. “And have you been out dancing with him? Men with moustaches can be good dancers.”

Mma Makutsi lowered her voice. “We haven’t actually been out together yet,” she said. “But that will happen soon. Maybe tonight.”

MR. BERNARD Selelipeng was the first student to arrive that evening, knocking at the door of the hall a good twenty minutes before the class was due to start. Mma Makutsi had already been there for half an hour, setting out the papers for the evening’s exercises and touching up the chalked-in finger diagram on the blackboard. A group of Boy Scouts had met in the hall that afternoon, and one of the Scouts had traced finger marks over Mma Makutsi’s drawing of the typewriter keyboard, necessitating some repairs to the third finger on the right hand and the little finger on the left.

“It’s only me, Mma,” he said on entering the room. “Bernard Selelipeng.”

She looked up and smiled at him. She noticed the gleaming parting in his hair and the neat buttoned-down collar. She saw, too, his highly polished shoes; another good sign, in her view, and one which suggested that he would appreciate her own new green shoes.

She smiled at him as he made his way over to his desk, to which she had earlier returned his essay. As he picked up the piece of paper and began to read her pencilled-in comment, she purported to concentrate on the pile of papers on her table, but she was watching for his reaction.

He looked up, and she knew immediately that she had done the right thing. Folding up his essay, he crossed the room to stand before her.

“I hope that you did not think I was being rude, Mma,” he said. “I wanted to write the truth, and that was the truth.”

“Of course I did not think you rude,” she said. “I was happy to read what you had written.”

“And your reply is just what I was hoping for,” he said. “I would like to ask you to come for a drink with me after the class tonight. Will you be free?”

Of course she would, and for the rest of the class, although she was outwardly occupied with the teaching of typing, she could not think of anything other than Mr. Bernard Selelipeng, and it was difficult to address questions to the class as a whole rather than to the smiling, elegant man seated in the middle of the second row. There were so many questions that had to be answered. What was his job, for example? Where was he from? How old was he? She guessed that he was in his mid- to late thirties, but it was always difficult to tell with men.

At the end, when the class had been dismissed and everybody except for Bernard Selelipeng and Mma Makutsi had dispersed, he helped her to tidy up and to lock the hall. Then he showed her to his car, the possession of which was another good sign, and they drove off in the direction of a bar which he said he knew at the edge of the town, on the Francistown Road. It was an intensely pleasurable feeling for her, sitting in the passenger seat of his car, like any other of those fortunate women who were driven about by their husbands and lovers with such an air of security and possession. It seemed to her to feel completely right, that she should be transported in this way, a handsome, moustachioed man at the wheel. How quickly, too, one might become accustomed to this; no long walk to work across dusty paths, trodden by so many other feet, nor any frustrating wait for the crowded and stuffy minibuses which would ferry one about in bone-shaking discomfort for a pula or two.

Bernard Selelipeng glanced at her and flashed his smile in her direction. The smile, she thought, was his most attractive feature. It was a warm, inviting smile, of the sort that one could imagine living with. A husband who scowled all the time would be worse than no husband at all, but a man who smiled like that would turn his wife weak at the knees every day.

They arrived at the bar. Mma Makutsi had seen it before, from the road, but had never been in. It was an expensive place, she had heard, where you could have a meal, too, if you wished. There was music playing in the background as they went in, and a waiter quickly appeared to take their order. Bernard Selelipeng ordered a beer, and Mma Makutsi, who never drank alcohol, ordered a soft drink with ice.

Bernard Selelipeng knocked his glass gently against hers and smiled again. They had not made much conversation in the car, and now he asked her politely where she lived and what she did for a living during the day. Mma Makutsi was not sure whether she should tell him about the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, as she was not certain whether he would be inhibited by her being a detective, even if only an assistant detective, and so she confined herself to mentioning her role as the assistant manager of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors.

“And what about you, Rra?” she asked. “What do you do yourself?”

“I work in the diamond office,” he said. “I am a personnel manager there.”

This impressed Mma Makutsi. Jobs with the diamond company were well paid and secure, and it was a good thing, she thought, to be a personnel manager, which had a modern ring to it. But even as she thought this, she wondered why a personnel manager, handsome, of an interesting age, and in possession of his own car, should be unattached. He must be one of the most eligible men in Gaborone, and yet he was paying attention to her, Mma Makutsi, who was not necessarily the most glamorous of ladies. He could go to the Botswana Secretarial College, park outside the drive, and pick up any number of fashionable girls much younger than herself. And yet he did not. She glanced at his left hand as he lifted his glass of beer to his mouth. There was no ring.

“I live by myself,” said Bernard Selelipeng. “I have a flat in one of those blocks at the edge of the village. That’s not far from your garage. That’s where I live.”

“They are very nice flats,” said Mma Makutsi.

“I would like to show you my place someday,” said Bernard Selelipeng. “I think you would like it.”

“But why do you live by yourself?” asked Mma Makutsi. “Most people would get lonely living by themselves.”

“I am divorced,” said Bernard Selelipeng. “My wife went away with another man and took our children with her. That is why I am by myself.”

Mma Makutsi was astonished that any woman could leave a man like this, but of course she might well have been the flashy type, and they were notorious. She imagined that such a wife could have her head turned by a richer, more successful man-although Bernard Selelipeng was clearly successful.

They made easy conversation for several hours. He was witty and entertaining, and she laughed at his descriptions of some of his colleagues in the diamond office. She told him about the apprentices, and he laughed at them. Then, shortly before ten o’clock, he looked at his watch and announced that he would be happy to run her home, as he had to be at an early meeting the following morning and did not wish to be too late. So they went back to the car and drove back through the night. Outside the house in which she rented her room, he stopped the car but did not turn off the engine. Again this was a good sign.

“Good night,” he said, touching her gently on the shoulder. “I will see you at the class tomorrow.”

She smiled at him encouragingly. “You have been very kind,” she said. “Thank you for this evening.”

“I cannot wait for us to go out again,” he said. “There is a film I would like to see at the cinema. Perhaps we can go to that.”

“I would like that very much,” said Mma Makutsi.