ROME (AP) — Police in a Rome neighborhood have come to the "rescue" of an elderly, quarreling couple by cooking them two plates of pasta.

Police headquarters said Tuesday that neighbors called police one recent, hot summer night because the 94-year-old man and the 89-year-old woman — married for nearly 70 years — were doing lots of shouting.

According to a police statement, "it can happen, as it did this time, that they were yelling out their desperation so strongly, in the end someone called police."

The statement said the four officers realized there was no crime in progress, just "two souls to reassure." They set to work treating them to dinner, using ingredients at their disposal: spaghetti, butter, cheese plus a "precious ingredient — all their humanity."

The couple ate with gusto.