“Are you not happy here?”
“Yes, and no. Happy to be near my son, and relatives and friends; no, because your business takes you away so much that I see little of you. If you take the mission, I shall have you with me all the time. I am selfish, I know, but it is my love for you that makes me so.”
The Hon. Quincy Adams Sawyer was nominated and confirmed as Ambassador to Austria-Hungary. Alice had made the selection.
“Let us go to Vienna, Quincy. It was there we met after our long separation—and, this is purely a personal matter, I wish to study the scenes of my story, 'The Son of Sergius,' at close range.”
Before Quincy's departure it had been decided to lease the Beacon Street house for four years. Maude was given her choice but preferred the house in Mount Vernon Street where she had lived since her marriage.
Young Quincy was obliged to take bachelor quarters which he found at Norumbega Chambers.
His suite consisted of a sitting-room, two sleeping rooms each with bath, and a small room intended for a library or study, and which was utilized by him as an office.
Quincy went down the harbour with his father and mother on the ocean liner, returning on the tug with Tom. On the way back young Quincy took a small envelope from his pocket and extracted a short note which he had read at least a dozen times since its receipt. It was from Miss Mary Dana and informed him that she had returned to Boston and would be pleased to see him, the next day, at her office with the Isburn Detective Bureau.
It was a cold, raw day in the early part of April and when they reached the city Quincy was taken with a chill. When they reached Norumbega Chambers the chill had turned to a fever, and Tom suggested sending for a doctor. Quincy stoutly protested against any such action being taken, but Tom summoned one despite his objections. In this way, Quincy became acquainted with John Loring Bannister, M. D.
Dr. Bannister was unknown to his patient when he paid his first visit, and was professionally non-communicative, but he told him afterwards, when their acquaintance had ripened to such an extent that the names Quincy and Jack took the place of more formal designations, that it had always seemed a wonder to him that he had survived. Quincy, with no intention of indulging in flattery, replied that if a certain physician had not been called in he, probably, would not have done so.