The narrator also suggests that Dexter wants to make his way and his money on his own.  The narrator tells the story that Dexter gave up going to the State university in lieu of a more expensive East Coast school, even though his father would have paid for the local school.  The narrator suggests that Dexter's father was prospering, so Dexter could have glided by on his father's coattails, but he refuses because he knows that he has to make his own way in order to acquire all the luxury that great riches will give him.  

The narrator also suggests that Dexter had a second sense about these aspirations, writing, "Often he reached out for the best without knowing why he wanted it."  He simply knows that by being surrounded by the best and richest, those aspects will hopefully rub off on him.

At the beginning of Section 2, the narrator says that Dexter wants to possess the material accoutrements (the trappings or outward signs of success) that come with being affluent.

He wanted not association with glittering things and glittering people--he wanted the glittering things themselves.

In other words, Dexter longs for luxury, and he works to get it. At twenty-three years old, he borrows a thousand dollars to purchase "a partnership in a laundry." His laundry business eventually becomes well-known for its expertise in laundering English woolen golf stockings, Shetland hosiery, delicate sweaters, and women's lingerie. Before the age of twenty-seven, Dexter is the proud owner of five laundry branches, making him the owner of "the largest string of laundries in his section of the country." After making his money, Dexter sells his business and heads to New York.

As can be seen from the beginning of Section 2, Dexter is a man who prizes wealth and its material trappings above all else in life.