Believing, too, that he and they could forget his gentle blood, that they could forgive it and he ignore it; but it had been the strongest of all strong things; now, when everything else was stripped away it remained: his birth, his blood, his traditions, and the great hate between him and the plebeian that had been for a while cloaked and disguised, now sprang actively to life. He could not repent too bitterly of his mistaken ideals of patriotism and the general good, his unfortunate ambitions of governing his country, of doing some service to his kind that had led him to this pass of despair, that had made him another figure of tragedy to blend in the bloody carnival being daily enacted; and in this moment of anguish he would rather have died as others of his class had died–at once hating the people and by them hated, tyrants perhaps and men who had done nothing with their lives, but to be envied by men like Marie Jean Caritat who had forsaken his order only to come to this. The two new-comers entered the room; which was now so light by reason of the level rays of the sun piercing the chestnut leaves that but little part of it was in shadow, and the Marquis, even with his back to the light was clear enough in every detail, as he well felt. He sat upright, with nothing of the pose of the character he was assuming in his bearing, and looked at the new-comers. He could see at once that they were of a type particularly hateful to him: the small official of no birth or culture whom chance had thrown to the surface in the turmoil of the revolution, and whom chance might, and probably would, throw to-morrow to the guillotine; but while their power lasted they used it brutally, these men, and enjoyed to deal fiercely with those of the old _régime_. One wore the tricolour sash round his rusty black cloth coat, and the tricolour in his cockade; he was perhaps president of the Committee of Public Safety in Bourg-la-Reine, or perhaps the Public Prosecutor; it was obvious that he considered himself a great man; in his native town he was probably bowed down to, being no doubt for the moment a potent instrument for death and terror. His companion seemed a kind of secretary or attendant, subservient and truckling to the more important man; both of them had the loose ungraceful air of low breed in a position of authority. On their entry both glanced instantly at the Marquis; it was no more than a glance from either of them; he drew a broken breath of relief to think that they passed his appearance. The woman came hurrying in to wait on them; they ordered wine lavishly and began talking noisily together about local politics. The Marquis foresaw no difficulty in making an easy escape, but he waited, considering what to do.