She took it and put it to her ear, repeating the usual Italian formula.
'Ready—with whom am I speaking? Yes. I am the Marchesa del Prato, she herself. What is it?'
There was a pause while she listened, and then Angela saw her face change suddenly.
'Dead?' she shrieked into the telephone. 'Half-an-hour ago?'
She still held the receiver to her ear, but she was stretching out her left hand as if she needed support. Durand took her by the arm and elbow, prepared to hold her up if she showed signs of fainting. Angela was already on her other side.
'Who is dead?' the girl asked quietly enough, but with evident anxiety.
'Your father,' answered the Marchesa, with such sudden and brutal directness that Giovanni started forward, and Durand stared in surprise, for he knew enough Italian to understand as much as that.
Angela made two steps backwards, slowly and mechanically, like a blind man who has unexpectedly run against a wall; like the blind, too, she held out her hands before her, as if to assure herself that she was getting out of reach of the obstacle. Her face had turned white and her eyes were half closed.
The Marchesa no longer seemed to be in need of support and watched her.
'My poor child!' she cried, in a tone of conventional sympathy. 'I should have broken the news to you gradually——'