You doubt me, perhaps. No, Agnes. Lawrence was a scholar and a soldier. Surely such a man would not giggle like a girl! But that giggle turned out to be as much a part of him as his small stature and great strength of will. Often, it invited you to follow his quirky logic. Sometimes, it was a warning. More rarely, it was a spontaneous outburst of genuine amusement. On the occasion of our first meeting, it simply conveyed relief that he had not, after all, shouted across a busy hotel lobby at an utter stranger.

He glanced beyond me toward the tall woman, who had by now dismissed the policemen and was taking the doorman and the dragoman aside. Perhaps because she herself spoke softly, their dispute became a conversation. Colonel Lawrence seemed to accept this lady’s intervention as a given. “If you wish to insult a Muslim, call him a dog,” he told me in a low, quick voice. “The gist of the doorman’s case is that your pet is unwelcome.”

“But— No!” I cried. “The Cook’s agent in Cleveland said—”

“Gerty will sort it out. How is Lillie? Is she here with you?” Colonel Lawrence asked eagerly. “No,” he said when he saw my look. “How?”

“Influenza.”

“My father as well,” he told me then, in the brief way we all had in those days. We’d acknowledge a private drop or two of grief in that ocean of general mourning and change the subject without providing the full roll of our dreadful losses.

“So. What brings you to Cairo?” he asked, blue eyes narrowed, his glance sidelong. “Are you a missionary, as your sister was?”

“Heavens, no!” I said with a bit more vehemence than I intended. “I’ve never been sufficiently confident in my faith to offer myself to others as exemplary.”

“My mother has recently decided to bring Christianity to the Chinese,” Colonel Lawrence informed me, then dropped his voice to confide, “She could, I’m afraid, testify that being exemplary is not a requirement for missionary work.”