I googled the first one and in the scene he is questioning her. She says he is throwing questions out at such speed that she felt like she was taking a psychiatric test. She then says 'I was sure he would have continued down whatever mental list he was following, except for the blush.' This basically means that he was going through the mental list of questions that he was firing at her and only stopped when she started to blush.

Hi Sonia, to answer your first question, I think I need more information. What was the sentence that came before this one? As for the second question, I would re-word it to "He smiled in response before launching into more thorough cross-examination." or "He smiled in response before launching into more cross-examining." Also, it's better to say, "When someone says 'smile in response' in place of 'smile in reaction'?"