Tara carefully withdrew her hand, their eyes still locked. “It’s poetry,” she blurted. “I mean . . . what you asked me on the platform. What I was reading. Poetry. Rumi. Do you know his work? Persian poet. Thirteenth century.” She searched his eyes for any hint of recognition, but she found them full of sparks that she believed were meant for her.

Jimmy shook his head. “Sorry, I’m a bit of a literary heathen. But I do love the poetry of my fellow Irishmen. Do you know Yeats?”

Tara’s eyes widened. “Yes, of course! He wrote the English introduction to Tagore’s Gitanjali poems.”

Jimmy stared at her blankly, so she continued. “Rabindranath Tagore? He won the Nobel Prize a few years back. The first Indian—the first non-Westerner to ever do so.” Tara did not try to hide the incredulity in her voice. “You are a heathen.”

At that, Jimmy laughed so loudly Tara feared he might wake her grandmother. But the door to her berth stayed firmly shut.

“I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you, madame,” Jimmy said, bowing slightly. “In my defense, I have committed many Yeats poems to memory.”

“It speaks in your favor.” Tara grinned. “But only a little. Yeats’s writing is brilliant. My tutor gave me a book of his recent poems—The Wild Swans at Coole.”

“I have that very volume with me,” Jimmy said. Tara noticed his face light up, just as hers did when she talked about Rumi. “He—Yeats—went to school with my father. For a couple years, at least. They still exchange the occasional letter or two. Does that lend me some civility points, at least?”

Tara’s mouth dropped. Imagine being so nonchalant about having a family connection to your nation’s greatest living poet. “Have you . . . ever met him?”

“No. My father hasn’t seen him in years,” Jimmy said. Tara’s wide smile eased as she nodded. “But he did send my father a poem recently before I shipped off for India. It’s not been published yet. Yeats said that he hoped every Irish soldier would be able to make sense of it.”

“That’s . . . that’s astonishing. My tutor says Yeats is one of the most magnificent writers in the English language. And you—you—have one of his unpublished poems.”

“It’s in my berth. Would you like to see it? You can join me for tea.”

Tara’s heart leaped at the chance. But she caught herself. How could she possibly go to a man’s berth, alone? Her shoulders drooped. “You have a first-class berth? To yourself?” He must have at least some family money, Tara thought.

“My father treated me for this holiday before I rejoin my regiment—the Connaught Rangers—around Solon. It was a sort of gift for my eighteenth birthday.”