Angela was quite certain that she did, and nodded quietly, though she could not see how her father's political convictions could affect her own present situation.
'I have no doubt,' continued the Princess, 'that he brought you up to consider yourself the heiress of all his fortune, though not of the title, which naturally goes to the eldest male heir. Am I right?'
'He never told me anything about my inheritance,' Angela replied.
'So much the better. It will be easier for me to explain your rather unusual position. In the first place, I must make it clear to you that your father and mother declined to go before the mayor at the Capitol when they were married, in spite of the regulations which had then been in force a number of years. They were devout Catholics and the blessing of the Church was enough for them. According to your father, to go through any form of civil ceremony, before or after the wedding, was equivalent to doubting the validity of the sacrament of marriage.'
'Naturally,' Angela assented, as her aunt paused and looked at her.
'Very naturally.' The Princess's eyes began to glitter oddly, and the lawyer turned his hat uneasily on his knees. 'Very naturally, indeed! Unfortunately for you, however, your father was not merely overlooking a municipal regulation, as he supposed; he was deliberately bidding defiance to the laws of Italy.'
'What do you mean?' asked Angela rather nervously.
'It is very painful to explain,' answered the elder woman with gleaming eyes and a disagreeable smile. 'The simple truth is that as your father and mother were not civilly married--civilly, you understand--they were not legally married at all, and the law will never admit that they were!'
Angela's hand tightened on the arm of the old sofa.
'Not married?' she cried. 'My father and mother not married? It is impossible, it is monstrous----'
'Not "legally" married, I said,' replied the Princess. 'To be legally married, it is absolutely necessary to go before the mayor at the Capitol and have the civil ceremony properly performed. Am I right?' she asked, turning suddenly to the lawyer. 'It is absolutely necessary, is it not?'
'Absolutely, Excellency,' the legal adviser answered. 'Otherwise the children of the marriage are not legitimate.'