He had invited her to look down on him, and she was accepting an invitation which it is not in human nature to decline.
There was one subject she had always avoided with him--the subject of his family.

He had not exactly avoided it, indeed, had spoken occasionally of his brothers and sisters, their wives and husbands, their children.

But his reference to these humble persons, so far removed from the station to which he had ascended, had impressed her as being dragged in by the ears, as if he were forcing himself to pretend to himself and to her that he was not ashamed of them, when in reality he could not but be ashamed.

She felt that now was the time to bring up this subject and dispose of it.
Said she graciously: "I'm sorry your father and mother aren't living.
I'd like to have known them." He grew red.

He was seeing a tiny, unkempt cottage in the outskirts of Wayne, poor, even for that modest little town.