Why is Undine attracted to Peter Van Degen in the novel, The Custom of the Country?

Peter Van Degen is described as physically large and repulsive. He bears a "grotesque saurian head, with eye-lids as thick as lips and lips as thick as ear-lobes." Undine initially recognizes Peter because he looks like his picture that frequently appears in the society pages of the newspapers, and his fashionable celebrity is enough to make him attractive to Undine.