Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-08-25
LONG r By Fannie Hr,,,

eRAAv "a 49, vi GAL tAANo oAN OLA
places, they exchanged vow to continue the
relationship, to keep alive the friendship, and
to correspond.
Unfortunately, these well meant intentions
were never to be carried out beyond the two
weeks following the visit of the new-made
friends to Browns Glen. True to their promise,
one letter was exchanged between them i'm
mediately after their return to their respective
homes. When no reply came to her second,
Shirley, after a wait of a considerable inter-
val, wrote a timid postcard reminding the
old gentleman of his promise. A reply came
in a short note from a woman who signed
herself Deborah Harbor, sister of the colonel.
The old gentleman had died in his sleep two
weeks after his return home from Browns Glen.
So much for the rather Wistful little incident
OF this friendship between an old gentleman
and a young girl which had taken place during
a pair of weeks in a quiet old country spot
among the foothills of Pennsylvania.
THE long arm of coincidence, It's moving fin
ger seeming to write, now swings through
time and space.
Ten years later a trim, capable, alert-eyed
woman in her early thirties is seated in a res
taurant in a busy business section of New York
City, lunching with another alert young wom-
an of her same type. They are obviously busi-
ness women. One Of them is Shirley Lang,
widow for five years and now buyer for the
misses ready-to-wear department of one of
the largest department stores of New York.
Time has dealt kindly with Shirley. She has
matured, but in a rather self-sufficient, slim
way that characterizes the development of the
modern girl. She is a little older, but no
heavier. She is a little sadder, but no less
clever. She Is a great deal wiser.
Life for Shirley has been a quick panorama
since those days which she spent in recupera-
tiop at Browns Glen. Her marriage, which
threatened, toward the end, to turn into dis
appointment, was abruptly spared what might
have been disruption by the sudden death of
her husband in a motor accident, when his
hand at the wheel was the unsteady one of
intoxication. Quick emotional, economic and
social changes had resulted. Almost overnight,
as it were, Shirley Lang had found herself
out in the world. She had made good. The
woman in the smart restaurant was a Chic,
up-to-date one. There was about her the
surenesS that goes with success, the calm de-
liberation Of the executive, the rather cold
demeanor Of the woman who has learned to
hold her own in a vast and complicated world.
Two tables removed, a youngish man, dining
with one considerably older, forces, with a re-
iteration that is annoying, his bold, dark glance
against the eyes Of Shirley Lang. 1t is an in
Slnuating glance, a specializing glance; one of
inquiry, not TO say impertinence.
Shirley Lang, whose experience along these
lines has been a long and bitter one, meets his
eye with a cold glitter in her own. She is an
noyed, even q little disguised. She points out
the man, with an excoriating remark, to her
companion. Her luncheon guest, also a buyer
in a large department store, recognizes him as
the new general manager.
Her annoyance IS so apparent that the young
man, laughingly invited by a nod from Shirley's
companion, crosses over in the mood of apology.
He is frank and a little boyish about it. Yes,
ho hod ham hN1Alu oVI nochoV oadl, VU1;o
for the eye of Shirley Lang. 1t might sound
absurd and juvenile to admit it, but it had
been so. long, five years in fact, since he had
felt the slightest f1utter Of interest in the f1ut-
ter of a woman's eye, that the emotion was
one that got the better of him. 1t had been
five years since his divorce. He had been
gathering himself together since.
1T was all so simple. OF course, according to
the writing finger of the long arm of COIN
cidence, the man was Raymond Harbor. He
had heard Of Shirley in those two last weeks
before his fathers death. He even had her
letter and postcard to the old gentleman
tucked away in his packet of precious me-
mentos.
The wooing and the mating of Shirley and
Raymond is not the point of this story.
The long, long arm is!
So much for the pattern of the situation.
Scarcely the one to catch up the thread of
these two lives into the same fabric. An old
colonel at peace in his grave might have
chuckled at the weaving fingers of time. In
more ways than one it might have gratifed
the old eyes, long since asleep, to see the eyes
of these two, Shirley and Raymond. discover
one another across a flock of conventional res
taurant tables, tighten, brighten, flash!
A pair Of lives had drifted together in much
the fashion that most human beings find out
their mates, and yet the fact that Shirley had
known the father of Raymond, back in the
days when an old man delighted in her youth,
makes the meeting seem a little unreal.
Just any two, ~glancing, quickening. uniting
after a glance or two in a public place, is ro-
nance. Shirley and Raymond, glancing, quick
ening, uniting after a glance or two in a public