"Being real, whatever Mr.Hirst may say.

Are you real ?" Rachel felt much as Terence had felt that Evelyn was too close to her, and that there was something exciting in this closeness, although it was also disagreeable.

She was spared the need of finding an answer to the question, for Evelyn proceeded, "Do you _believe_ in anything ?" In order to put an end to the scrutiny of these bright blue eyes, and to relieve her own physical restlessness, Rachel pushed back her chair and exclaimed, "In everything!" and began to finger different objects, the books on the table, the photographs, the freshly leaved plant with the stiff bristles, which stood in a large earthenware pot in the window.
"I believe in the bed, in the photographs, in the pot, in the balcony, in the sun, in Mrs.Flushing," she remarked, still speaking recklessly, with something at the back of her mind forcing her to say the things that one usually does not say.

"But I don't believe in God, I don't believe in Mr.Bax, I don't believe in the hospital nurse.

I don't believe--" She took up a photograph and, looking at it, did not finish her sentence.
"That's my mother," said Evelyn, who remained sitting on the floor binding her knees together with her arms, and watching Rachel curiously.
Rachel considered the portrait.