We first see Nora as she enters the house after shopping. Her interaction with Torvald begins in a playful way. He refers to her as "my little lark" and "my little squirrel," and she seems to accept these terms as familiar and quite acceptable. However, Ibsen hints that all may not be well between these characters by showing Nora secretly eating and hiding her purchase of macaroons from her husband. Torvald fully enters the scene when he realizes that Nora has said she made purchases, and he starts to talk about her "spendthrift" ways.
The following conversation reveals that Torvald is practical and conservative with money and that Nora is just the opposite. Torvald tries to get Nora to think about the consequences of borrowing money on the promise of his upcoming job. But Nora resists his appeals to logic:
NORA: Yes, Torvald, we may be a wee bit more reckless now, mayn't we? Just a tiny wee bit! You are going to have a big salary and earn lots and lots of money.
HELMER: Yes, after the New Year; but then it will be a whole quarter before the salary is due.
NORA: Pooh! we can borrow until then.
HELMER: Nora! (Goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear) The same little featherhead! Suppose, now, that I borrowed fifty pounds today, and you spent it all in the Christmas week, and then on New Year's Eve a slate fell on my head and killed me,
and—
NORA (Putting her hands over his mouth): Oh! don't say such horrid things.
HELMER: Still, suppose that happened,—what then?
NORA: If that were to happen, I don't suppose I should care whether I owed money or not.
HELMER: Yes, but what about the people who had lent it?
NORA: They? Who would bother about them? I should not know who they were.
HELMER: That is like a woman! But seriously, Nora, you know what I think about that. No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about a home life that depends on borrowing and debt. We two have kept bravely on the straight road so far, and we will go on the same way for the short time longer that there need be any struggle.
We also learn in this act that Nora has secretly forged a loan to allow her husband time off to rest from job stress. In other words, she has gone off the "straight road" that Torvald has laid out here, which he has argued is inconsistent with "freedom or beauty" in one's "home life." In sum, their relationship depends on Torvald's success at curbing Nora’s indulgences, which he is actually failing at miserably.