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Joyously Tenacious

At a company Christmas party four years go, Patrice Braut danced with a girl named Lupe. She fled into the night before he could learn her last name. The next day, Lupe Mendez found a note on her desk in Midtown, saying, "You left without saying goodbye." She felt like Cinderella.

Mr. Braut, 31, loved to travel, to play soccer and to take pictures, especially of the twin towers. He took Lupe to Brussels, Belgium, his hometown, to meet his parents. He excelled in his M.B.A. courses at Pace University. The first week of September, Lupe and Patrice, who lived in Riverdale, in the Bronx, went house-hunting in the suburbs. Mr. Braut was an only child, born after three failed pregnancies. "He was the little god of the family, adored by everybody," said his mother, Paola. "We lost everything through him."

His colleagues in technology at Marsh & McLennan have endowed a scholarship in his name at the Lycee Theodore Bracops, his childhood school. It is not for the best student, but for the most tenacious.

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 31, 2001.