Mr. Bradley sent a man back from the station to ask you about
plants; but you were asleep, and I didn't like to wake you!"

It was always something. Just as Nancy thought that the household
expenses had been put behind her for a few days at least, a fresh
crop sprang up. A room must be papered, the spare room needed
curtains, Bert's racket was broken, the children clamoured for new
bathing-suits. Nancy knew two moods in the matter. There was the
mood in which she simply refused to spend money, and talked darkly
to the children of changes, and a life devoid of all this
ridiculous waste; and there was the mood in which she told herself
desperately that they would get through somehow, everyone else
did, one had to live, after all. In the latter mood she ordered
new glasses and new towels, and white shoes for all four children,
and bottles of maraschino cherries, and tins of caviar and the
latest novel, and four veils at a time.

"Mrs. Albert Bradley, Marlborough Gardens--by self," Nancy said
smoothly, swimming through the great city shops. Sometimes she was
a little scared when the boxes and boxes and boxes came home, but
after all, they really needed the things, she told herself. But
needed or not, she and Bert began to quarrel about money, and to
resent each other's extravagances. The sense of an underlying
financial distress permeated everything they did; Nancy's face
developed new expressions, she had a sharp look for the moment in
which Bert told her that he was going to take their boys and the
Underhill boys to the Hippodrome, or that he was going to play
poker again. Bert rarely commented upon her own recklessness,
further than to patiently ejaculate, "Lord!"