"A view of Sorrento, Monsieur, but it does not do justice to the place.
I was pointing out the house which belonged to Tasso's father."
"Tasso! Hein! and which is the fair Eleonora's?"
"Monsieur," answered Isaura, rather startled at that question, from a professed homme de lettres, "Eleonora did not live at Sorrento."
"Tant pis pour Sorrente," said the homme de lettres, carelessly. "No one would care for Tasso if it were not for Eleonora."
"I should rather have thought," said Graham, "that no one would have cared for Eleonora if it were not for Tasso."
Rameau glanced at the Englishman superciliously. "Pardon, Monsieur, in every age a love-story keeps its interest; but who cares nowadays for le clinquant du Tasse?"
"Le clinquant du Tasse!" exclaimed Isaura, indignantly.
"The expression is Boileau's, Mademoiselle, in ridicule of the 'Sot de qualite,' who prefers—
"'Le clinquant du Tasse a tout l'or de Virgile.'
"But for my part I have as little faith in the last as the first."