Nathan had yet to learn that in the bodies of men and women, individually and severally, never collectively and rarely racially, and regardless of where they may discover themselves at birth, exist or do not exist chromosomes—vital, literal cells—of character, high quality, divine dissatisfaction, goal-winning discontent, beauty hunger, atonement with Perfection, which is God. It seems as though God had picked out certain persons throughout the human race, endowed them with the divine Order of Merit, favored them with the Cosmic Urge to approach Idealism. Those chromosomes might lie dormant through generations, to appear suddenly virulent as they had appeared in my friend. And this being a world in which like seeks like, Nathan was groping for fellowship with other immortals in that divine Legion of Honor and thus far had not found them and was miserable until at times he almost doubted himself. People of no brains! Mediocrity! Small-townism! Self-satisfaction! Sordidness! Narrowness! Bigotry! Stagnation! Dross! Chaff! Nature segregating her human waste! Nathan was not yet sufficiently enlightened to sweep them all into the same great basket and discard them from his scheme of things forever. And this was the thing that bothered most: He knew instinctively that in certain portions of her indictment, perhaps in its very fundamentals, Bernie had been right. But where to go to overcome those deficiencies she had excoriated, how to lift himself above them, perfect himself—who was there to show him, give him his cue, point a way? He had assumed his parents could do it. They had not done it. He had looked for Woman to do it,—The Sex. But thus far The Sex had not done it. Whence was the light and the help coming? For divine discontent with mediocrity and sordidness was now rampant in his heart and could never be eradicated. Fog! Fog! Fog! Nathan finally turned into The Morrison. He passed through the crowded lobby. Every woman he saw raised a feeling of repulsion in his breast. In his heart was a blind impulse to smash and crush even the pretty little elevator operator who made a laughing remark about a fussy old man who wanted to alight on the fifth floor. He reached the sanctuary of his own room and locked himself in. He threw off hat and coat and lighted a cigar. He sank full length on the bed, snapping the burned match angrily at the footboard. He knew that culturally he was a provincial, a small-town “rube”, as Bernie had called it. He didn’t want to be told those things. What he wanted was to be shown how to correct his crudities and have them nursed out of him, not blasted out with a torch; helped in his great moments of self-doubt; he needed a knowing friend to face him in the right direction, be patient with him when he stumbled, believe in him, have confidence that he could win,—win with him! There was no one,—yet!