Question

Eleanor did not look up when the door creaked, though she must have heard it; she possessed a singular capacity for active ignoring, a defensive silence she had perfected since their father's departure. Julian remained on the threshold, his fingers tracing the peeling varnish of the doorframe. From here, the room appeared exactly as it had in their childhood: the same smell of damp wool and lavender, the same stack of unanswered correspondence piled like miniature monuments on the bureau. Eleanor’s pen scratched against the heavy rag paper with a rhythmic, almost punitive insistence. To Julian, each stroke sounded like a small accusation, though he knew she was merely drafting the customary replies to their aunt's inquiries. He watched the slight tension in her shoulders, convinced that she was waiting for him to speak first, to offer the apology she believed she was owed. But when she finally turned her head, her expression was not one of cold expectation, but of mild, slightly distracted surprise, as if she had forgotten he was in the house at all. The silence that followed was not the loaded stand-off Julian had constructed in his mind, but merely the quiet of a room where two people happened to occupy the same space.

Which of the following best describes the function of the third-person limited point of view in the passage?