But she had gone beyond the point where things matter.

What would he think of her coming down to him--as he would naturally suppose.

And even that didn't matter.

He could not despise her more than she despised herself.
She must have been light-headed because the thought came into her mind that should he get into ungovernable fury from disappointment, and perchance strangle her, it would be as good a way to be done with it as any.
"You had that thought," I exclaimed in wonder.
With downcast eyes and speaking with an almost painstaking precision (her very lips, her red lips, seemed to move just enough to be heard and no more), she said that, yes, the thought came into her head.

This makes one shudder at the mysterious ways girls acquire knowledge.