InfoPath Dev

Hi. I am having a problem while using < and == with a global variable. The global variable is:

        //nr de vlanuri atasate unui port
        private object _intNo
        {
            get
            {
                return (int)FormState["_intNo"];
            }
            set
            {
                FormState["_intNo"] = value;
            }
        }

            objRoot = objXnDoc.SelectSingleNode("/my:ConfPorts/my:txtNo", this.NamespaceManager);
            intNo = objRoot.ValueAsInt;

So in this case it return the value as int. But how do I initialize it as int? 

When I try to do this

for (int k = 0; k < _intNo; k++)

i get these errors

Operator '<' cannot be applied to operands of type 'int' and 'object' 

 Operator '==' cannot be applied to operands of type 'object' and 'int'   

That is kind a strange. Could anyone help me out? Thank you.

 Well, instead of Object i writte int and it works. :)