'You hate me,' she said at last. 'What have I done to you?'
The Princess was not timid, nor very easily surprised, but the question was so direct that she drew further back into her chair with a quick movement, and her bright eye sparkled angrily as she raised her sandy eyebrows.
'In this world,' she said, 'the truth is always surprising and generally unpleasant. In consideration of what I have been obliged to tell you about yourself, I can easily excuse your foolish speech.'
'You are very kind,' Angela answered quietly enough, but in a tone that the Princess did not like. 'I was not asking your indulgence, but an explanation, no matter how disagreeable the rest of the truth may be. What have I done that you should hate me?'
The Princess laughed contemptuously.
'The expression is too strong,' she retorted. 'Hatred would imply an interest in you and your possible doings, which I am far from feeling, I assure you! Since it turns out that you are not even one of the family——'
She laughed again and raised her eyebrows still higher, instead of ending the speech.
'From what you say,' Angela answered with a good deal of dignity, 'I can only understand that if you followed your own inclination you would turn me out into the street.'
'The law will do so without my intervention,' answered the elder woman. 'If my brother-in-law had even taken the trouble to acknowledge you as his child, without legitimising you, you would have been entitled to a small allowance, perhaps two or three hundred francs a month, to keep you from starving. But as he has left no legal proof that you are his daughter, and since he was not properly married to your mother, you can claim nothing, not even a name! You are, in fact, a destitute foundling, as Calvi just said!'
'It only remains for you to offer me your charity,' Angela said.