tall pinnacles of the Palace of Green Porcelain and the polished gleam
of its walls came back to my memory; and in the evening, taking Weena
like a child upon my shoulder, I went up the hills towards the
south-west. The distance, I had reckoned, was seven or eight miles, but
it must have been nearer eighteen. I had first seen the place on a
moist afternoon when distances are deceptively diminished. In addition,
the heel of one of my shoes was loose, and a nail was working through
the sole they were comfortable old shoes I wore about indoors so that I
was lame. And it was already long past sunset when I came in sight of
the palace, silhouetted black against the pale yellow of the sky.
Weena had been hugely delighted when I began to carry her, but after a
while she desired me to let her down, and ran along by the side of me,
occasionally darting off on either hand to pick flowers to stick in my
pockets. My pockets had always puzzled Weena, but at the last she had
concluded that they were an eccentric kind of vases for floral
decoration. At least she utilised them for that purpose. And that
reminds me! In changing my jacket I found...
_The Time Traveller paused, put his hand into his pocket, and silently
placed two withered flowers, not unlike very large white mallows, upon
the little table. Then he resumed his narrative._
As the hush of evening crept over the world and we proceeded over the
hill crest towards Wimbledon, Weena grew tired and wanted to return to
the house of grey stone. But I pointed out the distant pinnacles of the
Palace of Green Porcelain to her, and contrived to make her understand
that we were seeking a refuge there from her Fear. You know that great
pause that comes upon things before the dusk? Even the breeze stops in
the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation about that
evening stillness. The sky was clear, remote, and empty save for a few
horizontal bars far down in the sunset. Well, that night the
expectation took the colour of my fears. In that darkling calm my
senses seemed preternaturally sharpened. I fancied I could even feel
the hollowness of the ground beneath my feet: could, indeed, almost see
through it the Morlocks on their ant-hill going hither and thither and
waiting for the dark. In my excitement I fancied that they would
receive my invasion of their burrows as a declaration of war. And why
had they taken my Time Machine?
52