The Buccaneers

In a Fifth Avenue drawing room, Mrs. Elmsworth, Mrs. St. George, and Mrs. Closson convene while a blizzard gathers over Central Park. Thanks to their daughters’ marriages, the three mothers are now established in New York’s highest social circles, and together they reflect on the paradox that success breeds monotony. Mrs. St. George savors her notoriety in the society columns but privately concedes that all the dinners and balls blur together. She consoles herself by imagining future Anglo-American alliances forged by her grandsons and savors the strategic value of her position among those that she herself once “revered” as “aristocracy” (324). The trio discusses Mabel Elmsworth Whittaker, newly widowed and already in Europe with her infant daughter. Mabel is credited with redirecting the late Steel King’s philanthropy from the Midwest to New York. Mrs. St. George feels a twinge of competitive alarm at Mabel’s early move onto the European stage, while Mrs. Elmsworth celebrates her daughter’s cultural authority and poise.

Conversation drifts to fashion’s latest shifts. To Mrs. St. George’s moral dismay and Mrs. Closson’s pragmatic acceptance, the bustle has vanished, skirts have narrowed, and young women now adopt “long drawers” (327). Ever hopeful for her son, Mrs.