If you need spiritual help, there are many better men than I, who can give it to you.

But as a man and a friend, come to me if you will.

You are to me also a man and a friend, and not a penitent." He finished speaking, took off his spectacles, and rested his head against the wall behind him, as Bosio had done, and the younger man glanced sideways at his friend's extraordinary profile.

Its fantastic outline had a moral effect upon him; for it recalled, as nothing else could, the early days of his life before he had been what he now was, when he had known what hope meant, and had understood aspirations in others which had no meaning for him now.

He was very grateful, too, for Don Teodoro's words, which certainly comforted him in a way he had not expected.
"Thank you," he said, "I will think of it.