“So much for a star’s life being an open book?”

She felt the tip of her nose flushing. “If reporters ask, I don’t answer. They’re sympathetic.”

For a while, neither spoke. The soft light from the nearest green lantern shimmered in his eyes. Nola’s gaze tried to pierce the depth of the garden. “How far is that orphanage?”

“Within walking distance.”

“Can we go now? If there’s a back gate, I’d love to make an end-run around the press.” Her bodyguards in the front would never know.

A few hundred feet to the right of the embassy ran the main alley of the Silk Market. During Nola's sightseeing on her first day in Beijing, the shops had been open to the street, and their merchandise had hung from ceilings and spilled onto tables on the sidewalk. Now the stores were shuttered with rolled-down iron grills. The click of Nola's heels on the cobblestones echoed in the deserted alley. Her satin shoes weren’t made to tread on terrain rougher than red carpet. They would soon be destroyed.

Daniel walked beside her, his nearness like a thousand promises that made her feel guilty about Wade. There was a spring to Daniel's step, yet also an economy in the controlled movement.

“Most abandoned babies are not orphans. They have parents who aren’t allowed to keep them,” he said. “The girls are victims of both the one-child policy and the peasant preference for boys. In rural areas, baby girls are called ‘maggots in the rice.’ ” There was anger in his voice. “In addition, an in-quota child must be born within the year assigned by the local bureaucrats. And a second child can’t be kept. Ever.”

“What if it is?”

“The penalties are huge: bone-breaking beatings, the destruction of homes, the loss of jobs and social benefits. Couples end up getting rid of a first-born girl to try for a boy, and then keep him only if he’s healthy.”

In the distance, two old women swept the empty street of debris and collected it into plastic vats. “Daniel,” Nola asked, “How did you get into this? Where did you grow up?“

“In Maryland.”

“Maryland! How normal.”

“My parents are both professors at Johns Hopkins. I stayed close by, in Washington, D.C.—when I’m not on sabbatical from Georgetown University, like now.”

“I still don’t understand your job at the embassy.”

He shrugged. “Acting as our government’s human-rights watcher is the only way for me to have access to local resources. The Chinese government is very picky about who it lets close enough to take a look. My published political articles have denied me the entry the Chinese reserve for those who write favorably about their government’s practices.”

“Which of your parents is Chinese?”