The management of the Olympic billed her extensively as a very paragon of marvels, but most of the critics refused to endorse this opinion. Perhaps they were anxious to do a good turn to the home artistes who had been rather thrust aside by the foreign invasion of the boards of the variety theaters; at any rate, they declared her dancing was a mere pose, not always in the best of taste, and that her beauty was nothing to rave about.
I had not seen this much-advertised dancer, but the Olympic management could have had no reason to regret the expense they had gone to. Whether her dancing was good or bad, whether her beauty was real or imaginary, the great theater was full to overflowing night after night; her picture, in various postures, was in all the illustrated papers, and paragraphs concerning her were plentiful.
From beginning to end actual facts about her were difficult to get; but allowing for all journalistic exaggeration, the following statement is near the truth.
She was an eccentric rather than a beautiful dancer, and if she was not actually a beautiful woman there was something irresistibly attractive about her. Her origin was obscure, possibly she was not a Russian, and if she had any right to the title of madame, no husband was in evidence. She was quite young; upon the surface she was a child bent on getting out of life all life had to give, and underneath the surface she was perhaps a cold, calculating woman, with no other aim but her own gratification, utterly callous of the sorrow and ruin she might bring to others.
All other statements concerning her must at least be considered doubtful. Her friends may have been too generous, her enemies unnecessarily bitter. Personally I do not believe she was in any way connected with one of the royal houses of Europe, as rumor said, nor that she was the morganatic wife of an Austrian archduke.
I have said that I had never seen her. I may add that I was not in the least interested in her.
Even when I read the headline in the paper, "Mysterious disappearance of Madame Vatrotski," I remained unmoved; indeed, I had to think for a moment who Madame Vatrotski was, and when the paragraph concluded that the disappearance was probably a smart advertisement I thought no more about the matter.
Before the end of the week, however, I was obliged to think a great deal about this woman. It was a tribute to the dancer's popularity that her disappearance caused widespread interest not only in London, but in the provinces, and it speedily became evident that her friends were legion.
She had dined, or had had supper, at various times, with a score of well-known men; she had received presents and offers of marriage from them; she had certainly had two chances of becoming a peeress, she might have become the wife of a millionaire, and half a dozen younger sons had kept their families on tenter-hooks.
It was said the poet laureate had dedicated an ode to her—that Lovet Forbes, the sculptor, was immortalizing her in stone, and Musgrave had certainly painted her portrait.