While the shirt had previously covered her, the sudden movement gave him something to be distracted by. And really a part of him still thought he could turn this around and so maybe he was staring at her chest for a minute, but he was allowed. Well, he was normally allowed being married to her and all, but when she was yelling at him, it probably wasn't the most appropriate thing to be doing. "Can you at least do up the buttons if you're going to sit there and yell at me?"
He paused waiting for her to at least move do as he asked. While she seemed to only get more emotional, he remained somewhat detached and clinical from the whole thing as if this was yet another experiment he was performing. (It was easier to handle if that was the case.) "And yes, it was for my intellectual curiosity, I don't see how that really changes anything or somehow makes this worse? I was presented with a puzzle and wished to figure it out, how is it different than another time in our past?"
Eli didn't really think that he was at fault here, she was just over reacting, which made sense. The 'dream' was deeply personal to her, clearly something that she feared, where that simply wasn't the case for him. While it might have been disturbing, it was mostly a curiosity.