'What does that mean?' asked Angela in a frightened tone.
'It means,' explained the Princess, 'that in the eyes of the law you do not exist----'
'But I do exist! Here I am, Angela Chiaromonte, to say that I am alive!'
'Angela, but not Chiaromonte,' corrected the Princess, hardly able to hide her satisfaction. 'I am sorry to say that your dear father would not even submit to the regulation which requires all parents alike to declare the birth of children, and he paid a heavy fine for his refusal. The consequence is that when your birth was entered at the Municipality, you were put down as a foundling child whose parents refused to declare themselves.'
'A foundling! I, a foundling!' Angela half rose in amazed indignation, but almost instantly sat down again, with an incredulous smile. 'Either you are quite mad,' she said, 'or you are trying to frighten me for some reason I do not understand.'
The Princess raised her sandy eyebrows and looked at the lawyer, evidently meaning him to speak for her.
'That is your position, Signorina,' he said calmly. 'You have, unhappily, no legal status, no legal name, and no claim whatever on the estate of His Excellency Prince Chiaromonte, who was not married to your mother in the eyes of the law, and refused even to acknowledge you as his child by registering your birth at the mayoralty. Every inquiry has been made on your behalf, and I have here the certified copy of the register as it stands, declaring you to be a foundling. It was still in your father's power to make a will in your favour, Signorina, and as the laws of entail no longer exist, His Excellency may have left you his whole estate, real and personal, though his titles and dignities will in any case pass to his brother. I must warn you, however, that such a will might not prove valid in law, since His Excellency did not even legally acknowledge you as his child. So far, no trace of a will has been found with his late Excellency's notary, nor with his lawyer, nor deposited with his securities at his banker's. It is barely possible that some paper may exist in the rooms which are still closed, but I think it my duty to tell you that I do not expect to find anything of the kind when we break the seals to-morrow, in the presence of the heirs and witnesses.'