Chye Hoon was in her office at the hotel. She appeared to be extremely busy, fiddling with the papers on her desk. But her mind was not wholly preoccupied with her work...her thoughts came to rest on Boo Hong. She found him intriguing. But in what way he was different from other men she found hard to tell. She only sensed he was different and unique. She left it at that. She thought of her marriage. Hitherto she had found it satisfactory-not exciting perhaps, save at the very beginning, but tolerable. She had never been particularly romantic in her outlook. She had decided to marry Gin Tek because she found him quite a personable young man. There was nothing obviously wrong with him and their families were friends. She married because that was what everybody was expected to do...But romance somehow had struck no responsive chord in her. She regarded herself as a practical person with no illusions whatsoever... She had encountered a lot of men, but she had never been fascinated by any of them. When she heard of anyone being madly in love, she smiled with a superior wisdom. She could not comprehend it, and she frankly expressed the opinion that such love was of dubious reality. She was not cold by nature-she just didn't care for the fanciful notion of love. Her ideal was to lead a happy life, follow the society around her, and avoid extremes. So far, her philosophy had held good. Now, for the first time in her life, she felt troubled. It was not that she had fallen in love with Boo Hong; she had done no such thing. She just found him interesting-that was all it was. Of course, there was no reason why she shouldn't, just as in the course of her life she had found some other men interesting. She racked her brain but couldn't recollect any such person. How could she be in love when she had never given much estimation to such a notion? Love was an illusion.
