"The Flower-Women" by Clark Ashton Smith

estrade: a slightly raised platform

recondite: little known; abstruse

Lorelei: a large rock on the bank at a narrows of the Rhine River near Sankt Goarshausen, Germany. The rock produces an echo and is associated with the legend of a beautiful maiden who threw herself into the Rhine in despair over a faithless lover and was transformed into a siren who lured fishermen to destruction.

captious: calculated to confuse, entrap, or entangle

abhuman: partially human

vans: wings

cupel: a shallow, porous container in which gold or silver can be refined or assayed by melting with a blast of hot air which oxidizes lead or other base metals

matrass: a rounded glass flask with a long neck formerly used for dissolving substances by the application of heat or for distilling

The follow along: http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/short-stories/73/the-flower-women

There are a few spots where the word choice in the text above varies slightly from what is in the book I'm reading from, so "domination" in the online version is indeed "dominion" in my book. No substantive difference, but it's not that I did a poor job of reading, it's that my book does in actual fact vary slightly here and there.