"If you recall that at all clearly, you will also remember that the fault was not mine, but Ukridge's."
"Well?"
"It was his behaviour that annoyed Professor Derrick. The position, then, was this, that I was to be cut off from the pleasantest friendship I had ever formed——"
I stopped for a moment. She bent a little lower over her easel, but remained silent.
"——Simply through the tactlessness of a prize idiot."
"I like Mr. Ukridge."
"I like him, too. But I can't pretend that he is anything but an idiot at times."
"Well?"
"I naturally wished to mend matters. It occurred to me that an excellent way would be by doing your father a service. It was seeing him fishing that put the idea of a boat-accident into my head. I hoped for a genuine boat-accident. But those things only happen when one does not want them. So I determined to engineer one."
"You didn't think of the shock to my father."