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278 Yet his efforts to connect with Banning over the long-distance telephone had not met with success, and the mere despatch of a telegram, worded as judicially as he could contrive it, brought no sense of response and no companionable easing off of his own excitement.

It was noon before that initial high tension fried itself in its own juices. With the lengthening day Conkling grew, if not calmer, at least more coherent, and afterthought paced sedulously at his elbow. He began to see difficulties and dangers. The disturbing thought of even a second Alcazar crept into his mind, for such a thing as insurance, of course, had never entered the heads of those two old incompetents of the manor-house. Then his attention swung away from the Titian and centered more and more on Julia Keswick. He had no liking for the situation in which she had been left, short-lived as it was bound to prove. She was as wonderful, in a way, as the Titian itself. In many ways she was much more wonderful. She had been tragically held in, repressed,