I found Musgrave quite willing to talk about Madame Vatrotski, and before I had been with him ten minutes I discovered that his opinion of her very nearly coincided with Quarles's.
He put it differently, but it came to the same thing.
"To tell you the truth, she rather appealed to me when I first saw her," he said. "It was at an artists' affair in Chelsea. She came there with a man named Renaud, who has a big shop in Regent Street, and had spent money on her, I imagine. She was interesting because she was something new in the way of vulgarity. It was for this man Renaud that I did the portrait, but when it was finished he repudiated the bargain. He said it wasn't a bit like her. You see, I was not looking at her with his eyes"
"Had she no beauty, then?"
"I cannot say that," Musgrave answered. "She had a beautiful figure, and her face—well, I painted it as I saw it. Renaud said it wasn't in the least like her, and I am bound to admit that most of the people who knew her and have seen the portrait in the Academy agree with him."
"You claim that you show her character, I suppose?"
"No; I merely say I painted what I saw."
"Can you account for the fascination she exerted?" I asked.
"I answer that question by asking you another. Can you account for the fascination which sin exerts over a vast number of people in the world? See sin as it really is, and it repels you; but sin seldom lets you see the reality, that is why it is so successful. A man requires grace to see sin as it really is, and that is his salvation. I was in a detached position when I painted Madame Vatrotski's portrait, and you have seen the result; had I been under her spell the result would undoubtedly have been different. I should have painted only the mask of the moment, and that would have satisfied her admirers, I imagine. I suppose you know that my ideas of the true functions of art have caused many people to call me a crank?"
"I know little of the artistic world," I answered; "but any man who takes himself seriously always appeals to me."