Molly's sacrificed a lot over the years for her husband. While her husband was languishing in jail for political offenses against the British state, she had to keep the family together. She was the one who had to stay at home and raise the kids, despite having next to no money. She was the one who had to make sure that there was a decent home for her husband to return to when he was finally released.

Well, those days are well and truly over, thank goodness. Now, Molly's husband is a member of the Irish government. He's going up in the world and has just been appointed to the post of Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Roads and Railways. Now that Mr. Maguire is going up in the world, Molly thinks it's high time that she received some tangible sign of their new-found social status. Hence her demand for an expensive fur coat.

Although life may be a lot easier and more comfortable for the Maguires than it was when Mr. Maguire was a political prisoner, they still aren't rich, by any means. But Molly thinks it's important that they keep up appearances in order to compete with the other members of the Irish political elite. And that means, above all, that Molly should have a nice fur coat to wear on state occasions, when she'll be rubbing shoulders with the wives of senior ministers. One gets the impression that Molly is so insecure in herself that she much prefers the world of appearance represented by the fur coat to the reality of her still quite modest economic situation.