Axios not sending basic authorization

In a VueJS app I am making an axios call to an API on a remote server. The server is set up to return the correct CORS headers (Access-Control-Allow-Origin, and Access-Control-Allow-Headers). It looks like the auth headers are not sent at all.

Here is the pertinent code:

var config = "auth: {username: 'username', password: 'secret'},
              headers: {accept: 'application/json'}";                                                               
axios.get(self.link, config)                                                                                                                                         
     .then(function (response) {                                                                                                                                      
     self.jobDetails = response.data;                                                                                                                             
     console.log(response.data);                                                                                                                                  
     })                                                                                                                                                               
     .catch(function (error) {                                                                                                                                        
          console.log(error);                                                                                                                                          
     }); 

The accept header is sent correctly. The auth header is not sent at all. So, I get a 401.

All searches for an answer point to CORS solutions. But, I do not get the CORS preflight error. So, I think the ORIGIN request is handled correctly.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

TIA

via Chebli Mohamed