The Green Bungalow by Fred M. White

Blythe was almost inclined to smile at himself when he dwelt upon the part he had elected to play in a love comedy that apparently did not concern him in the least. He was getting on in life now despite his rather youthful appearance and his air of luxurious prosperity, and his methods of obtaining the gilded living that was almost second nature to him was not so easy as it seemed and moreover entailed a real amount of hard work and a deal of scheming. And yet here he was deliberately turning his back upon a golden opportunity of making a lot of money and actually watching the plump pigeon of his fluttering into the hands of a brother adventurer.

He was telling himself, half cynically, that there must be a certain vein of sentiment to his nature, and that this sort of thing must be suppressed, if he did not want to end his days in the workhouse. But, after all, Blythe had his good points, and impulses which, from sheer necessity, had to be forced into the background, and in his heart of hearts welcomed the chance of doing Roy Harley a good turn. There were times, years ago, when he had mixed freely enough in that sort of company, and occasionally, in his darker moments, he mourned his own lapse from the straight path more or less sincerely. And there were other reasons that impelled him to put aside altogether his predatory business and devote himself entirely to straightening out the tangle in which Harley had been deliberately involved by Shute and Macglendy.