For one thing, John, in his serious young manhood, had altogether outgrown the boyish petulance which had induced him to call himself May. Whatever had been the cause of his mother’s abandonment of that name, he felt sure it must have been a just cause. He had gradually grown into a respect which was not either sympathy or filial feeling for his mother and her decisions, and the hot boyish opposition to all she desired, which once boiled in his veins, was there no longer. In the gravity of twenty-one, which felt like ten years more after his studious and serious youth, he was willing to confess that he had been very foolish at the moment of grief and passion when he had left home and the tender care of the old grandparents, to enter upon life. And the sight of Montressor, and his appeal to him by the name which he had assumed for that moment only, always brought an acute pang of recollection and shame.
And yet he had never informed the actor that his name for ordinary purposes was not May. Something withheld him from any such confession--indeed, for that and other reasons he made his interview with the actor as brief as possible when he met him, and was glad to buy him off with that five shillings for Edie, though he had not always been rich enough to spare it easily. To-day he felt the call after him of ‘Mr. May-- John May,’ more disagreeable than ever. There was no telling who might hear the respectable John Sandford addressed by that name, and explanations are always difficult. He turned sharply round upon his doubtful acquaintance, raising his hand to stop the call.
‘Do you want me?’ he said, in a tone which perhaps was somewhat sharp, too.
‘Me young friend, I am delighted to see you,’ said Montressor; ‘it is ages since we have met. Let me help to carry your things, me excellent young hero--for such ye are ever to me. The chyild is well, and always remembers her deliverer--in her prayers, me dear May, in her prayers.’
‘Poor little Edie! I am very glad to hear she is well, and I hope you are as busy as I am,’ said John, with an uneasy smile. ‘I scarcely have a moment I can well call my own,’ a statement which was largely influenced by his desire to get away from any prolonged interview now. To tell the truth, Montressor, gaunt and shabby in his shiny hat, was not the sort of person with whom a highly respectable young man would care to be seen standing amid the crowds of a railway station in London, in what was still the full light of day.