Bradley lost sight of the humor in this speech at the sound of Ida's name, and his face flushed. He had not heard her name spoken by a third person in months, and had never dared to say it out loud himself.
Cargill went on: "She's an infernal heretic and suffragist and all that, but she's a power. Her name is Wilbur--Ida Wilbur. Used to lecture for the Grange or something of that kind. Is still lecturing, I believe, but the Grange has snuffed out."
Six or eight men came into the larger room talking loudly and excitedly about the market, and Cargill's attention was drawn off by the resonant reports of the Chicago market.
"The market shows great elasticity. Western advices contribute to the Bull feeling."
"Do you know Miss Wilbur?" Bradley asked when Cargill came back, being afraid Cargill might forget the topic of conversation.
"Yes, I meet her occasionally. I meet her at the Square Table Club, where we fight on literature. They call it the Square Table Club, because they disagree with the opinions of the most of us real literary people of the town."
Bradley managed to say, in a comparatively firm tone of voice, that he had heard of Miss Wilbur as a Grange lecturer, and that he would like to know more about her.
"Well, I'll introduce you. She aint very easy to understand. She is one of these infernal advanced women. Now, I like thinkers, but what right has a woman to think? To think is our manly prerogative. I'm free to admit that we don't exercise it to much better advantage than we do our prerogative to vote; but then, damn it, how could we stand wives that think?"
Bradley had given up trying to understand when Cargill was joking and when he was in earnest. He knew this was either merciless sarcasm or the most pig-headed bigotry. Anyhow he did not care to say anything for fear of drawing him off into a discussion of an impersonal subject, just when he seemed likely to tell something about Ida's early life.
It was a singular place to receive this information. He sat there with his elbow on the desk, leaning his head on his palm, studying Cargill's face as he talked. Over at the other end of the room, the operator was feeding himself on a pickle with his left hand, and receiving the telegrams from the far-off, roaring, tumultuous wheat exchange, every repeated message being a sort of distant echo of the ocean of cries and the tumult of feet in the city. They were as much alone and talking in private as if they were in Cargill's own room at the hotel. Cargill talked on, unmindful of the telephone, the telegraphic ticking, and the brisk, business-like action of his partner.