Long had they plotted and prospered together, these two Bohemians of most malevolent type; and successfully and oft played into each other's hands. Never yet had the good fortune of the one been devoid of profit to the other; knowing this, each felt safe in accepting, unquestioned, the suggestions of the other; and because of this, she felt assured now that, in this present scheme, there was something to be gained for him as well as herself. When the looker-on wonders idly at the strength of ties such as those which bound together these two, and the length of their duration, he has never considered their nature—the similarity of tastes, similarity of pursuits, and the crowning fact of the mutual benefit derived from such association. Find a man who lives by successful manipulations of the hand-book of chance, and who bows to the deity of three aces;[61] who finds victims in fortified places, and whose most hazardous scheme is surest of success; who walks abroad the admired of his contemporaries, who envy him his position as fortune's favorite in proportion as they ply their own similar trade near the foot of the ladder of chance; who shows to men the dress and manner of a gentleman, and to the angels the heart of a fiend—and you will find that man aided and abetted, upheld and applauded, by a woman, his fitting companion by nature or education. She is unscrupulous as he, daring as he, finding him victims that his arm could not reach; plying the finer branch of a dangerous but profitable trade; sharing his prosperity, rescuing from adversity; valued because necessary, and knowing her value therefore fearing no rival. [61] Cora was beautiful in Davlin's eyes, and secure in his affections, because she was valuable, even necessary, to him. He cared for her because in so doing he was caring for himself, and placing any "card" in her hands was only the surest means of enlarging his own pack. While she, for whether a woman is good or bad she is ever the slave of her own heart, recognizing the fact of the mutual benefit resulting from their comradeship, and improving, in her character of a woman of the world, every opportunity to profit by him, yet she saw in him the one man who possessed her love. Though the life she had led had worn out all the romantic tendencies of her nature, and had turned the "languishing of her eye" into sharp glances in the direction of the main chance, still she lavished upon him the best of her heart, and held his interest ever the equal of her own. After the manner of such, they were loyal to each other.
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