He finds out that friendship to him was more than just a friendship. Really what the girl wanted was having a relationship with someone that had material wise as to the one that had the raccoon coat. For the narrator in the story maybe if he would have stayed with the raccoon coat the girl will have fall in love with him. Friendship means more to him than having to show her to become smart as him and knowing she would marry her. The narrator as showing her the fallacies and logic turned at the end to be a failure by gaining the love of a girl who was not in love. In which he lost his friendship over his intelligence of showing logic.
Materialistic in this story showed how material has more powerful words and means more than showing that love for the person. Polly prefers to go with