geometry - Systems of conics

As long as you can get an elementary proof of the fact that one of the families consists of ellipses with foci $A=(-c,0)$ and $B=(c,0)$ and the other consists of hyperbolas with the same foci, you can say that for any intersection point $P$ the angle between the lines $PA$ and $PB$ is dissected by the tangent to either curve - otherwise moving on the tangent would cause a first-order error in the sum $|PA|+|PB|$ or the difference $|PA|-|PB|$, respectively. Hence the two tangents are just the two angle bisectors of a pair of lines, and are thus orthogonal.